By Asra A. Ansari
Human beings have the tendency to feel, express, think, and most all make decisions related to complex matters. These tendencies are intrinsic urges that motivates an individual to exchange ideas with other individuals around in a certain way. Almost all life forms generally find order, to operate, to connect, to measure and even schedule, to either exploit matters or to transfer to subjectivity, to be imaginative, to experiment, to be interactive, to be precise, to establish themselves and also have values. These natural tendencies are essential for Individuals to live and cope in society but as far as the value goes, individuals misuse these tendencies which can turn into a harmful act.
When feelings and emotions are concerned, desire to achieve becomes a priority. Desire is an emotional mental state that is analogous to love or rage or sadness as well as unexpectedness or pleasure leading by a state of mind. This is certainly not true, though. Many researchers and mental health professionals nowadays agree that desire is turned into lust which is a bodily impulse, quite similar to starvation or the need for oxygen from the blood. Intensive sexual attraction or appetite is the concept of lust. This sexual attraction is also described as being for someone other than a partner, although it may not be as relevant to the current cultural baggage. In certain situations, such strong desire for sex is only a symptom of balanced sex drive as an adult; however it’s a manifestation of something a little more complex also.
Currently, the natural urge is now taken a shape of a violation across nations. According to United Nations, globally 35% women experience physical or sexual harassment via an immediate family member, or by a non-partner, has long been encountered; which is increased during covid-19 pandemic.
Every year almost 120 million girls as young as 20 years – about 1 in 10 females are compelled to participate in intimate relations and execute numerous different lewd acts, although the actual figure is probably much higher. Approximately 90% of adolescent girls who report forced coitus say that anyone they grew up knowing had been their first offender, usually a boyfriend or a husband.Not just females but males as well become the victims; unfortunately, they are unable to report the crime. Every 72 seconds someone get molested in America; in which 14.8% complete and 2.8% are attempted rape victims (females), 12% Transgender, Gender-queer and Non-conforming (including: 18% non-TGQN females and 4% non-TGQN males). In 2019, more than 30,900 sexual assault cases/ or 82 incidents per 100,000 population were reported in Canada, making it almost 7% higher rate since 2018. In industrialized countries, sexual assault is very common among working woman, which is approximately around 42-50%. In the European Union 40-50% women, 30-40% women in Asian Pacific countries and recently 77% women in South Africa were reported have become the victim of workplace sexual assault.
It is disturbing that far too many females have started to accept sexual abuse and violence as a routine phenomenon in common daily interaction across South Asia and even beyond. Across the South Asian countries like Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, silence on the sex subject becoming the reason of increase rate of sex abuse, even as its effect has however doubled in current interventions. In India about 28% women gets violated by their husbands, 22% women by boyfriend/friend and approximately almost 145,000 cases are still pending to be reported. In Bangladesh around 53% in Dhaka and 62% in Matlab married women, 79% by non-partner and almost 86% females around the age of less than 15 till age 30 get molested by strangers. Nepal region cases have increase to 10% in two years. Almost 256 rape cases reported within the age group15-24, in which 1,131 cases are still under-reported. Cases which were reported includes 64% conviction rape case, 44% attempted rape. In Sri Lanka, almost about one third (30%) of women get assaulted by their intimate partner and about 24.4% women gets violated by non-partner.
Sexual assault in Pakistan increased at alarming rate. Although Pakistani culture discourages news, the White Ribbon Pakistan NGO estimates that 47,034 women have encountered sexual harassment, over 15,000 cases of honor violations have been reported, and more than 1,800 cases of domestic violence and more than 5,500 abductions of women between 2004 and 2016 have taken place. More than 51,241 incidents of violence against women were recorded between January 2011 and June 2017, according to media reports. Covid-19 was not the only crisis Pakistan was facing. In 2020, almost 73 incidents of Rape were reported in Lahore including 5 gang-rape cases. During the time, the gang violence continued to fluctuate with a 73% decline rate in the month of February, but an increase of about 360% was seen during the month of March 2020.A 5-year-old girl was abducted, struck on the head and above all was burned alive after brutally raped in southern Pakistan. Nearly after five days later of this incident, a mother in the eastern part of the country was first pulled from her vehicle and sexually attacked in front of her children on a Lahore-Sialkot Motorway.Child sexual abuse cases shoot up in 2020; nearly 53% girls and 47% boy were subjected to sexual abuse or rape.
With an increasing range of such incidents in all across the country today, and the inability of the authorities to prosecute the perpetrators, females in Pakistan feel more vulnerable than ever. Many incidents are not reported due to being afraid of the fact “Blaming the Victim”. Furthermore, male figures are also becoming the target of sexual harassment at alarming rate; unfortunately, circumstances are yet to be controlled. Being silent about such subjects not only provoking harm than preventing it; but also becoming the reason of lack of responsibility towards one nation.UNESCO published a fully updated International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education, which advocates for quality CSE (Comprehensive Sex Education) to promote health and well-being, respect for human rights and gender equality, and empowers children and young people to lead healthy, safe and productive lives.Each teenager should have sex education integrated into their schooling. It is not meant to be opt-in or opt-out, but obligatory. Why should parents be able to pick their children in or out of a topic that they will use later in life, one way or another? Sex education should be compulsory, systematic, medically correct, and taught during school years, much like algebra.It is our moral responsibility as a society to educate the next generation and we are losing at this moment.
