This is a short story of the sexual abuse of a young girl in a Pakistani city where she spent her childhood and studied till class 12. She shared with nobody what she experienced at the hands of young and elderly men. She was an outdoor girl and feared she would be confined to her home. This is not a paper that reviews types of violence, categorises the perpetrators and looks at the impact of abuse. This story has a bit of analysis at the end.
I love the city I grew up in, but I hate the men of the city.
I was sexually abused by men of different ages and even
Some boys are playing on the street. I did not tell my family for
Fear of being restricted to the home
My sisters never went out when told it was not safe to go out. After my intermediate studies, I left the city and entered a hostel in another city for higher studies. I was 17 years old. I am an optimist. I told myself the abuse enabled me to take a path which made me happy, and today I am content with myself.
A friend lived nearby, and she loved going over. Her friend’s house was through a narrow lane where little boys played. She had to run to reach her friend’s house as the boys would rush to touch her breasts and bottom. They could not have been more than xxxx years old.
Once her mother needed some tomatoes, and she offered to get them from a nearby store. She went there and asked for tomatoes, which were placed in a bag, and the seller shoved the bag in her crotch. She grabbed the bag and ran home. Another time, she was in her father’s office, and her father had gone to the mosque for prayers.
The two attendants of the office were sitting in the verandah and chatting. She sat in her father’s chair and was swivelling it when an elderly man came, and she jestered and asked him to sit outside until her father returned. He came up to her and shoved a finger in her crotch and said, ‘I sit here ?’ She ran out of the office and into the sanctuary to her home, which was nearby.
There was another incident. She was barely seven years old when a poor boy of approximately the same age was hired by her father to keep the office clean. As the boy was very poor, the father told his wife to get him to do some work in the house. She and her two brothers felt very sorry for him and decided to teach him to read and write. And over the 5 years he was in the house, he became literate. This was not all they did. They also invited him to watch TV programs for children.
Their house was so arranged that a door led to the sitting area, and another door led to the living area. The boy had to have the door opened to go out. He knocked on the door, and she, who was sitting with her visiting aunt and cousins, ran to open the door. As she opened the door, he caught her hand and gave a lured look with a big grin on his face. He looked wild. She pulled her hand away and gave him a look of anger, and ran back to where everybody was sitting. He was by then about 12 years old. Soon after this incident, the family was going on vacation, and she opted to stay back with her father. I did not want to leave him alone, she said.
One afternoon, her father said he was going to the mosque for his prayers and left. She saw from the window the boy coming to where she was standing in a large room with a bed. She quickly locked the door and squirmed in the corner of the bed. He pushed the door and then shoved again and again on the door. The lock did not give way as she sat terrified and counted the minutes before her father returned. As soon as her father came, he left. That was close, she thought. This was a few months before he was to marry a 26-year-old from his family.
She would slap her chest and pray to God that she remain flat, as she did not want to be a woman
Four or more incidents in a span of about 12 years is one event too many. These were narrated calmly, and no trauma returned, simply because the survivor dismissed them all as trash and focused on what she wanted to do. She told nobody of what she had experienced, for she feared it would lead to incarceration inside the house, as was the case for her sisters. She had stopped going to see films also, and once when being pressurised to do so, she declared to her cousin that she did not like being probed. Her cousin said, yes, that happens.
Abuse of women is a male privilege, it seems. While we cannot comment on this abuse inside the homes, in her case, they were all in the public domain. This privilege appears to cut across class and ethnicity. Dealing with them is not easy, but in her case, her focus was on her decision to protect her love for the outdoors.
Being of the female species created the challenge, and while growing up, she protested to herself at the emergence of signs of womanhood. She would slap her chest and pray to God that she remain flat as she did not want to be a woman. This phase also passed away, and she grew into a confident being pursuing her dream of music and travelling around the world.
The concept of patriarchal bargain can explain her courage and decision to maintain silence. Consider the cage in which all men and women are confined to lead their lives. The reeds that make the cage can be firm or loose. For women, all the reeds tend to be firm, as women carry the burden of all household chores and confine themselves to their homes. For her, the reed of movements was loosened, and she maintained its looseness through her silence.
Thus, she succeeded in crafting her life as she wished. Her patriarchal bargain was negotiated successfully by her. She had stopped going to the city of her childhood, and once her mother inquired, she spoke of her sexual assault. Her mother was quiet and never mentioned her visit to the city of her childhood. She had declared that she would not marry as arranged by her family, and found somebody and married him. They lived away from in-laws and were satisfied.