How a Facebook group exposed Pakistan’s ugly side

Bushra Mahnoor
4 min readDec 11, 2020

After the heart wrenching incident of a mother being gang raped on Motorway in font of her kids, it stirred a huge debate on how should we get rid of such heinous crimes and criminals. To this the majority Pakistanis without any hesitation presented: Hang the Rapist! well that may sound like a solution to many. But what about potential rapists: the men who harass women at schools and colleges, the men who inappropriately touch little boys and girls, the men who make offensive hand gestures to women on streets, the men who send videos of them nude to women online, and the men who catcall women on roads. What about them ?

Today I woke up and went on the usual scroll on my Facebook profile and I was mortified by what I saw there. A girl had shared a post about a group named: Say Yes To Harassment (such name can only come from a country ranking third worst on gender parity). She had asked people to report this group because of its content. This group had 625 men from across Pakistan who mutually ‘shared’ not only their rape fantasies but asserted having harassed women of all ages.

So this guy thinks a 7 year old kid is probably a slut because ‘he’ sexually abused the kid. Keeping in mind that though child sexual abuse is one of those crimes that goes unreported each day and yet according to an estimation by Sahil almost 7 kids get raped every day. There is no data to indicate how many kids get molested.

Over the recent years the cases of kids being sexually exploited in Madaris and mosques has escalated beyond limits. Yet this guy as well as all the people who gave love and haha reacts to this post think it is very funny to subject kids to such abuse. These sick people have even created one such hashtag too.

It’s hard to believe that this guy only joked about rape.

Another sicko shamelessly shared his experience. While reading this I kept praying this might be a joke, otherwise I can’t imagine the trauma he subject on that innocent soul.

22 people celebrating a rape. Might be 22 on this particular app on this particular post, can you imagine who many of such perverts exist here in our society ?

I don’t think anyone has forgotten about the brutal rape and murder of the six year old Zainab Ansari in Kasur. This incident which shook the whole nation to its core and was a reason government was compelled to Zainab Alert bill. Well for people in Say Yes To Harassment, this is also amusing.

Last month in Kashmore, a mother and daughter were gang raped. The kid was as young as 4 years of age. No doubt these men are calling it a king move.

As you might have known by now ur kids are safe no where, they are safe with no one.

And apparently people did come up with suggestions on whom to harass.

Another ghairatmand Pakistani man.

Rape fantasies of these men about celebrities never get old. And many other told the name of women of their choice whom they’d like to rape. There were extremely graphic details as well, which I feel ashamed to share.

People mass reported the group and Facebook has shut it down. But in no time these men will gather once again, maybe at some other platform and continue to be a threat to women’s existence.

As a woman I no more feel safe, anywhere. Men continue to make life a living hell for women and kids of this country.

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