Zainab
A little girl in Pakistan was raped, strangled, and thrown into a dumpster. She was seven.
As her relatives tell it, Zainab’s horrifying last few hours unfolded like this: The child had been staying with her aunt while her parents traveled to Saudi Arabia to perform the umrah pilgrimage. On Thursday, relatives say, she left home for a nearby Koran recital. She never returned.
On Tuesday, police found her body in a dumpster about a mile from her home in Kasur, a city in Punjab province. According to early autopsy reports, Zainab had been raped multiple times and strangled four or five days earlier.
She was seven. Seven. Seven.
The condemnable & horrific rape & murder of little Zainab exposes once again how vulnerable our children are in our society. This is not the first time such horrific acts have happened. We have to act swiftly to punish the guilty & ensure that our children are better protected. pic.twitter.com/9f7OM3hYT1
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) January 10, 2018
Zainab’s case, though, seems to have hit a nerve, prompting attention from politicians, athletes and performers. On Wednesday, riots erupted over alleged inaction by authorities. At least two people were fatally shot when protesters tried to storm a police station to demand justice, according to Dawn. Shop owners in the city shut their doors on Wednesday in solidarity with Zainab’s family.
In Pakistan, rape and violence against women are endemic. Sometimes, they’re even sanctioned by traditional authorities. In Pakistan, tribal councils have come under fire for ordering the rape of women whose relatives commit crimes. In July, a 12-year-old girl was raped by a teenager in a field. Two days later, the perpetrator’s 16-year-old sister was sexually assaulted as punishment. Although it’s hard to know how often this happens, experts estimate that hundreds of women suffer this fate each year.
God hates women, everybody hates women.
That poor little girl. There are no words. It’s heartbreaking.
What a sickening society that treats half the human race as the property of the other half. We’re (sort-of) emerging from that state in the West; places like Pakistan are a century or more behind, but there are plenty of men in positions of power who would like to take the whole world back to the bad old days.