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HIDING RAPE TO SAVE “HONOR” By: Angelina Duaa Hashir

It baffles me to see that a woman in our society is meant to have her family’s honor hidden inside her vagina. A girl who has been raped is supposed to keep silent and not disclose this to anyone because it is going to destroy the family’s honor and leave the girl with no respect. What kind of a social fabric demands such outrageous and disgusting behavior? What really is honor and how is it sewn into the vagina of every newborn girl in my truly God forsaken society? How can you sweep a crime as heinous as rape under the carpet?

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Why is it that the first thing to cross people’s mind after hearing about the horrid news of rape is a question as to who would marry such a girl? The family thinks that they will be humiliated in front of everyone if anyone finds out. So to spare herself and the family from the so called shame, as expected, she keeps silent. Has it crossed your mind how devastated, how torn, how tormented a victim girl is after such a tragedy? How she would had been screaming for help and fighting to get away from this but there was no one to save her, no one to rescue her. How much pain she had been through? How she blamed it on herself that only if she hadn’t left the house, only if she would have listened to her mother and not stayed out so long, only if she hadn’t trusted people so easily. But there is no way out for her, she was stuck. Tears rolling down her eyes and her screams had halted because now she was numb and all she wished for was death.

She wakes up in the hospital next day and sees her family. She’s relieved a bit because she knows that no matter what her family will always be by her side because that is what families do, right? They stand by you through everything and are always there to support you, to love you, to wipe away your tears. That is what a family does. But everything seems different. Her father doesn’t look at her and everyone else is awkwardly silent. No one utters a word even after she opens her eyes. After seeing her daughter open her eyes, the father walks out of the room taking her younger brother along. The mother is sitting next to her, she comes closer to her head and whispers ‘never ever tell anyone about this, we will act like this never happened’ and moves back to the seat. She is expecting her to say ‘my child you don’t have to go through this alone I am here for you’ or her mother asking her if she is okay, is she feeling better? Instead she is told to bury her feelings and start acting “normal” from this point onward.

What about the person who raped her? Why isn’t this reported to the police, she questions in her heart. Then she has a glimpse of her mother’s eyes and gets all the answers. The police can not know about this, no one can; because then she will have no respect in the society and she would wind up alone. The family Image result for RAPEmust be spared from the humiliation, which could be brought on by this issue being out. So this is what she does. She holds her feelings inside of her. Dies inside everyday, each minute. The thoughts never leave her mind and drown her, slowly and agonizingly. All she can think about is the day she was raped, how it happened, how she lost her family after that, how now no one talks to her the same way, how her mother asks her every other day if she has told anyone about it or not? instead of asking her if she is fine after all this or not? What did she do to deserve all this? What did she do to be going through so much? She is being punished for something she didn’t even do, something in which she was totally innocent and has to suffer because of a sin committed by someone other who goes away with his life as no one is there to question the rapist, no one there to make him pay for what he did. All because “IZAAT SAB SAY PEHLAY’. (Honor is priority)

Well, this is what you call honor or respect or izzat or whatever name you give it; Then a girl is better off Image result for RAPEwithout it. No one has the right to shut her up. She has been through a lot already, don’t make her go through the misery of being silent about this matter. So many rape cases go unreported because of this. Its time we realize that staying silent is the worst you can do and fighting is the best you can do. So fight for what is right and what is wrong. NO TO SILENCE!

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