On Wednesday March 22, a twitter user tweeted that as a ‘medicolegal examiner’ women made up rape ‘for hidden benefits’.
I was a medicolegal examiner of a rape case today and i feel very sad to say that women fabricate rape cases for some hidden benefits.
— Biya Ali Zaib. (@BiyaAli9) March 22, 2023
It's true. I have done almost dozen of MLC cases and 90% were fabricated
— Biya Ali Zaib. (@BiyaAli9) March 22, 2023
Lawyer and legal expert Mavra Ghaznavi then addressed those claims in a long thread completely rubbishing the claim.
I worked on police and medicolegal reforms in Punjab for about 5 years and let me tell you why this is absolute nonsense. Unfortunately, this has to be a LONG thread: https://t.co/QhtsHLEg8Q
— Mavra Ghaznavi (@MavraGhaznavi) March 24, 2023
She first put the claim in context of Pakistan’s cultural and patriarchal context:
2. Firstly, there is NO evidence that women lie because what happens in most cases is that survivors are either pressured to stop attending court, the retraumatisation is too much so they withdraw from the case or they are pressured to settle by the rapist / their own community.
— Mavra Ghaznavi (@MavraGhaznavi) March 24, 2023
She also highlighted that women are constantly and consistently not believed which causes them to lose hope for any justice:
4. The truth is of course that many women don't come forward because the process is humiliating and nobody believes you. A few days ago, a friend told me about a drunk SP who attempted to rape an MP's wife on Constitutional Ave. Did she report the attempted rape? Of course not.
— Mavra Ghaznavi (@MavraGhaznavi) March 24, 2023
Continuing on she detailed about what happens to a woman when she is raped and what the initial reaction is:
…in attitudes. There is a TON of research that demonstrates that the MOST COMMON RESPONSE TO TRAUMA IS FREEZING, but the prejudice of state actors has been reinforced too many times from too many sources for them to respond to survivors otherwise.
— Mavra Ghaznavi (@MavraGhaznavi) March 24, 2023
