"But there is a more pressing matter than even this - something that we have been talking about, that we are here to talk about today - when that journalist Soumya (Vishwanathan) was murdered, Sheila Dikshit (CM, Delhi) had issued another statement saying "If she (Soumya) was out at 3am in the morning, she was being too adventurous," - we are here to tell her that women have every right to be adventurous. We will be adventurous. We will be reckless. We will be rash. We will do nothing for our safety. Don't you dare tell us how to dress, when to go out at night, in the day, or how to walk or how many escorts we need!"-Tehelka Bureau.

This is a difference between women in New Delhi and women in Lahore. During my brief visit to the Indian capital this September, I was struck by the brazen attitude of the women on the streets, wearing most whatever they pleased, owning the streets as they walked, hailing rickshaws, taking the metro, crossing streets, shopping in bazaars, talking back. Their voices and mannerisms spoke of aggression and a certain kind of hostility. I was quick to absorb all of it, my language and mannerisms changing to match theirs, my soft Urdu transforming into street Hindi, sounding combative instead of cautious.

My first impressions, like most first impressions, were illusory - I thought perhaps the men had learnt their social place, and some kind of evolution had taken place on the streets and trains of Delhi, that there had been some kind of negotiation of public spaces between males and females. In my haste, and delight, I thought that perhaps international female tourists had a part to play. Leg, arm, cleavage were displayed with no care or coyness; they were a matter of fact in the summer heat. And, still swept in that train of thought, I wondered, idly, of the myriad ways in which tourism could affect similar changes in Pakistan.

After a train ride or two outside of the ladies' section during rush hour, I quickly realised that this was not the case. Punjabi men remain Punjabi men on either side of the border. But this wasn't to do with the men; it was all about the women. It was the women who had earned their place and were in no hurry to give it up.

I realized that the women here had understood, or at least felt, their right to claim public space as their own, and were fiercely protective of that civil liberty. Was it just state-adopted religion that made all the difference, I asked myself over and over again. Why were women at home less visible, less likely to use public transport without a male escort, less likely to walk home late at night, less likely to migrate to cities to seek employment? I had so many questions.

Delhi remains an insecure city for women, and one of the "rape capitals" of the world. The Indian National Crime Records Bureau rated Delhi as the unsafest city for women in India ("572 women were raped in the city last year as compared to 239 in Mumbai"). The usual rules apply: women are more vulnerable especially at night, especially when traveling alone, especially when using public transport, walking in certain areas, etc. As a tourist I couldn't have felt my vulnerability acutely change with geography; I had no history in that city, and I couldn't tell its "unsafe" neighbourhoods from its "safe" ones. I didn't know where the police precincts were, where incidents of sexual violence had taken place, which shortcuts led to which places, where the darkness began. My only map was charted by my desire to explore this beautiful city that felt like home, and could exist in a parallel world, and yet not.

It is not easy to tally incidents of sexual assault and violence when such a large number go unreported. Rape remains one of the most underreported crimes in the Indian subcontinent. Most often rape survivors are urged not to report the crime, given the associative stigma. When they do work up the courage to do so, they are met with hostility on the part of police officers and medical staff. It is important to note that filing a First Information Report (FIR) without a forensic examination may be tantamount to an admission of fornication in Pakistan, which under the Hudood Ordinances carries its own set of exacting punishments. Forensic reports are most effective when conducted immediately after the incident of sexual violation, becoming less effectual as more time passes. If the survivor wants to press charges, they must make sure to check a copy of the FIR to ascertain whether the charge is filed under Zina-bil-Jabr ( jabr meaning force) or under Zina as described under the Hudood Ordinances. The latter piece of legislation allows for the rape survivor to be counter-charged with adultery.

There is a cold, crafty arithmetic that is folded over and beneath the proceedings of a rape case: the victims are shamed and blamed, the offenses are diminished, and in between medical reports, eyewitness accounts, police reports, the sense of urgency and restorative justice mitigates leaving behind the reality of violence and crime and an inability to affect meaningful change to the status quo.

How safe or unsafe are the cities and districts of Pakistan? In Lahore, where the city has physically undergone a transformation at the behest of security checkpoints and to eliminate wanton acts of terrorism, what measures are being taken to assess and prevent gender violence? Firearms are not the only choice of weapon that have been used against women: acid throwing remains a cheap, accessible recourse. The Acid Survivors Foundation estimates that only a third of acid attack victims are officially reported. According to a recent article in DW, while there are no accurate statistics available, some estimates have put the number of women attacked annually close to 900.

What does safety look like for women? How do we citizens with varying degrees of privilege and vulnerability ensure that no one's rights to personal safety are compromised? Sexual safety has only been defined as abstinence in Pakistan, and safety for women has been defined in similar ways: segregation of spaces, limited access to public spaces and services for women, with cultural and Islamic expectations of modesty and honour further solidifying the notion that men and women must remain separated. And while men have access to worlds outside their homes, it is the women that are denied the same liberties. What will it take to change this?

A friend said something very chilling to me on a September morning in Delhi, as we waited for a tour of the old city: she looked around at the women crossing the street and said, "I don't wonder about whether they have been sexually violated or not, I wonder how many times and how." The State has failed us, but more importantly, we have failed one another. We have not created safe environments for one another, or built community norms around which we can all live and thrive. Our societies are built on oppression, and they regularly allow and excuse hate crimes and random violence.

There has been a spate of protests against this most recent act of grotesque crime, the gang rape and beating up of a woman on a bus on December 16th in Delhi. In July there was the horrific crime against the young woman in Guwahati. She was molested and mauled by a group of men, all of it recorded on tape by a news reporter. The video went viral and she became problematically known as "the Guwahati girl," which may have safeguarded her privacy, but also reduced her to a statistic as opposed to a person whose fundamental rights have been grossly violated. What do we do with this media frenzy that has become a disease? Is it ever more important to document than to act?

Hira Nabi is an itinerant filmmaker and teaching artist