Women in Pakistan’s troubled province Baluchistan are fearful after a spate of attacks that targeted women going out without male family members.

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“Soon after drinking my tea, I felt dizzy and dozed off. The next thing I remember is that I was sitting in a police station. They told me, I was drunk and had desecrated the Holy Book, Quran. I was surrounded by a violent mob and people belonging to religious parties were condemning me. No one was listening to my cries. All they wanted was punishment for a crime that I had never committed.”

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Watching news channels has always been depressing for me, but on March 13, my heart sank when I heard about a teenage girl from a small town in Pakistan’s Punjab who decided to set herself on fire outside a local police station.She suffered severe burns on her body and succumbed to her wounds the next day, all because culprits who allegedly gang raped her were granted bail by the police.

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It was very late in the night when my mother woke me up and asked me to take her to the hospital. She was sweating heavily and obviously not feeling well. We women were alone at home because my brother was out with his friends. I tried to call him but he was out of reach. Instead of wasting more time knocking our neighbors’ doors or calling our relatives to come and help us, I simply took the car and drove to the emergency unit at the nearest hospital.

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“Don’t kill me please… I have done nothing wrong… I was just enjoying the rain, I don’t want to die… please … for God’s sake, brother, don’t kill me!”

I was begging and trying to hide myself behind my mother who was also begging for my life. She was asking my cousins to pardon me for bringing shame to the family. We kept pleading, but they shot me. I was dying, as the words “family honour” kept flashing across my mind.

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Attention please: Girls and women of all age groups are requested to keep at least two adult men or four adult women with them, regardless of whether they are at home or elsewhere. This measure will help in case the woman in question is raped. The witnesses can then testify in court and help the victim get justice. Rapists are also requested not to harm these

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This was my first voting experience during the local government Elections in Karachi in 2007. All I wanted to do was cast my vote to the party whose Mayor had performed extraordinarily during his tenure. Interestingly or unfortunately, the person demanding my ballot paper belonged to the very same party. Much to my dismay, I was forced to give my ballot paper in front of the staff that was present there, the personnel of security agencies and Election Commission of Pakistan. These institutions later claimed that the election process was totally “free and fair”. That made me so upset that I decided never to cast my vote again.

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