This is how racism takes root

By now surely everyone knows the case of the eight men convicted of picking vulnerable underage girls off the streets, then plying them with drink and drugs before having sex with them. A shocking story. But maybe you haven't heard. Because these sex assaults did not take place in Rochdale, where a similar story led the news for days in May, but in Derby earlier this month. Fifteen girls aged 13 to 15, many of them in care, were preyed on by the men. And though they were not working as a gang, their methods were similar – often targeting children in care and luring them with, among other things, cuddly toys. But this time, of the eight predators, seven were white, not Asian. And the story made barely a ripple in the national media.

Of the daily papers, only the Guardian and the Times reported it. There was no commentary anywhere on how these crimes shine a light on British culture, or how middle-aged white men have to confront the deep flaws in their religious and ethnic identity. Yet that's exactly what played out following the conviction in May of the "Asian sex gang" in Rochdale, which made the front page of every national newspaper. Though analysis of the case focused on how big a factor was race, religion and culture, the unreported story is of how politicians and the media have created a new racial scapegoat. In fact, if anyone wants to study how racism begins, and creeps into the consciousness of an entire nation, they need look no further.

Imagine you were living in a town of 20,000 people – the size of, say, Penzance in Cornwall – and one day it was discovered that one of its residents had been involved in a sex crime. Would it be reasonable to say that the whole town had a cultural problem, that it needed to address the scourge – that anyone not doing so was part of a "conspiracy of silence"? But the intense interest in the Rochdale story arose from a January 2011 Times "scoop" that was based on the conviction of at most 50 British Pakistanis out of a total UK population of 1.2 million, just one in 24,000: one person per Penzance.

Make no mistake, the Rochdale crimes were vile, and those convicted deserve every year of their sentences. But where, amid all the commentary, was the evidence that this is a racial issue; that there's something inherently perverted about Muslim or Asian culture?

Even the Child Protection and Online Protection Centre (Ceop), which has also studied potential offenders who have not been convicted, has only identified 41 Asian gangs (of 230 in total) and 240 Asian individuals – and they are spread across the country. But, despite this, a new stereotype has taken hold: that a significant proportion of Asian men are groomers (and the rest of their communities know of it and keep silent).

But if it really is an "Asian" thing, how come Indians don't do it? If it's a "Pakistani" thing, how come an Afghan was convicted in the Rochdale case? And if it's a "Muslim" thing, how come it doesn't seem to involve anyone of African or Middle Eastern origin? The standard response to anyone who questions this is: face the facts, all those convicted in Rochdale were Muslim. Well, if one case is enough to make such a generalisation, how about if all the members of a gang of armed robbers were white; or cybercriminals; or child traffickers? (All three of these have happened.) Would we be so keen to "face the facts" and make it a problem the whole white community has to deal with? Would we have articles examining what it is about Britishness or Christianity or Europeanness, that makes people so capable of such things?

In fact, Penzance had not just one paedophile, but a gang of four. They abused 28 girls, some as young as five, and were finally convicted two years ago. All were white. And last month, at a home affairs select committee, deputy children's commissioner Sue Berelowitz quoted a police officer who had told her that "there isn't a town, village or hamlet in which children are not being sexually exploited".

Whatever the case, we know that abuse of white girls is not a cultural or religious issue because there is no longstanding history of it taking place in Asia or the Muslim world.

How did middle-aged Asian men from tight-knit communities even come into contact with white teenage girls in Rochdale? The main cultural relevance in this story is that vulnerable, often disturbed, young girls, regularly out late at night, often end up in late-closing restaurants and minicab offices, staffed almost exclusively by men. After a while, relationships build up, with the men offering free lifts and/or food. For those with a predatory instinct, sexual exploitation is an easy next step. This is an issue of what men can do when away from their own families and in a position of power over badly damaged young people.

It's a story repeated across Britain, by white and other ethnic groups: where the opportunity arises, some men will take advantage. The precise method, and whether it's an individual or group crime, depends on the particular setting – be they priests, youth workers or networks on the web.

Despite all we know about racism, genocide and ethnic cleansing, the Rochdale case showed how shockingly easy it is to demonise a community. Before long, the wider public will believe the problem is endemic within that race/religion, and that anyone within that group who rebuts the claims is denying this basic truth. Normally, one would expect a counter-argument to force its way into the discussion. But in this case the crimes were so horrific that right-thinking people were naturally wary of being seen to condone them. In fact, the reason I am writing this is that I am neither Asian nor Muslim nor Pakistani, so I cannot be accused of being in denial or trying to hide a painful truth. But I am black, and I know how racism works; and, more than that, I have a background in maths and science, so I know you can't extrapolate a tiny, flawed set of data and use it to make a sweeping generalisation.

I am also certain that, if the tables were turned and the victims were Asian or Muslim, we would have been subjected to equally skewed "expert" commentary asking: what is wrong with how Muslims raise girls? Why are so many of them on the streets at night? Shouldn't the community face up to its shocking moral breakdown?

While our media continue to exclude minority voices in general, such lazy racial generalisations are likely to continue. Even the story of a single Asian man acting alone in a sex case made the headlines. As in Derby this month, countless similar cases involving white men go unreported.

We have been here before, of course: in the 1950s, West Indian men were labelled pimps, luring innocent young white girls into prostitution. By the 1970s and 80s they were vilified as muggers and looters. And two years ago, Channel 4 ran stories, again based on a tiny set of data, claiming there was an endemic culture of gang rape in black communities. The victims weren't white, though, so media interest soon faded. It seems that these stories need to strike terror in the heart of white people for them to really take off.

What is also at play here is the inability of people, when learning about a different culture or race, to distinguish between the aberrations of a tiny minority within that group, and the normal behaviour of a significant section. Some examples are small in number but can be the tip of a much wider problem: eg, knife crime, which is literally the sharp end of a host of problems affecting black communities ranging from family breakdown, to poverty, to low school achievement and social exclusion.

But in Asia, Pakistan or Islam there is no culture of grooming or sex abuse – any more than there is anywhere else in the world – so the tiny number of cases have no cultural significance. Which means those who believe it, or perpetuate it, are succumbing to racism, much as they may protest. Exactly the same mistake was made after 9/11, when the actions of a tiny number of fanatics were used to cast aspersions against a 1.5 billion-strong community worldwide. Motives were questioned: are you with us or the terrorists? How fundamental are your beliefs? Can we trust you?

Imagine if, after Anders Breivik's carnage in Norway last year, which he claimed to be in defence of the Christian world, British people were repeatedly asked whether they supported him? Lumped together in the same white religious group as the killer and constantly told they must renounce him, or explain why we should believe that their type of Christianity – even if they were non-believers – is different from his. "It's nothing to do with me", most people would say. But somehow that answer was never good enough when given by Muslims over al-Qaida. And this hectoring was self-defeating because it caused only greater alienaton and resentment towards the west and, in particular, its foreign policies.

Ultimately, the urge to vilify groups of whom we know little may be very human, and helps us bond with those we feel are "like us". But if we are going to deal with the world as it is, and not as a cosy fantasyland where our group is racially and culturally supreme, we have to recognise when sweeping statements are false.

And if we truly care about the sexual exploitation of girls, we need to know that we must look at all communities, across the whole country, and not just at those that play to a smug sense of superiority about ourselves. Source

Oxford sex abuse victim: 'At first they treat you like a princess'

One of the victims who gave evidence in court against the Oxford child sexual exploitation ring has told the Guardian how she was groomed, raped and trafficked while in the care of Oxfordshire county council.

Girl C's abuse began just after her 13th birthday. By the age of 14, the gang had got her addicted to hard drugs and was regularly trafficking the teenager across the country to be raped by strangers.

By 16, Girl C was pregnant by one of her abusers. She finally managed to escape only after her son was born, when the gang threatened to murder the baby if she did not start recruiting younger girls into the same cycle of abuse.

Speaking exclusively to the Guardian, Girl C revealed that her adoptive mother spent two years begging the council for help with her daughter, first contacting the council when Girl C was 12 years old and starting to stay out all night, returning home drunk and dishevelled.

"Mum wrote to all the key people in social services, called her own case conferences, invited agencies and got them sitting around the table, but they just passed the parcel between them – and all the while, I was getting increasingly under the power and influence of the gang," said Girl C.

"My adoptive mum started asking Oxfordshire social services for help with me in 2004 and they refused and resisted giving even the most basic support for two years."

By the time the council agreed to put the girl in a temporary care home, she said: "It was too late: the grooming process had run its course. I was completely under their [the gang's] control."

Shortly after she was trafficked from Oxford to London for the first time, she said, she tried to talk to staff at the care home but was told the conversation was "inappropriate".

"A week after I moved into the care home, I tried to tell two members of staff all the things that had been happening to me but they told me it was inappropriate to have the conversation at that time," she said. "They promised we would discuss it later but that never happened.

"If they had listened to me, they would have known exactly what was going on and it would not have happened again. But they turned me away. I wouldn't trust them after that."

Five men – Bassam and Mohammed Karrar, Akhtar and Anjum Dogar, and Assad Hussain – were convicted on Tuesday on charges including rape, conspiracy to rape, trafficking for sexual exploitation and facilitating child prostitution against Girl C.

Two other defendants were found guilty of charges involving other victims. Two other men were cleared.

Girl C is reluctant to draw wider conclusions from the fact that all her abusers were Muslim and their victims white.

"Not all the men are Asian: at least two are Egyptian," she said. "They are, though, all Muslim – but not all Muslim men behave like that."

There did, however, appear to be a subset of Muslim men in Oxford who targeted white girls.

Girl C said that when the men asked her to recruit younger girls, they specified that they wanted only white girls. "But not all the punters were Asian or North African," she added. "Although they were all foreign."

Girl C eventually moved "halfway across the country" in a final, desperate attempt to escape her abusers. Now living with her adoptive mother and young child, she has described how the gang went to considerable effort to slowly draw her in over many months.

"The grooming was so clever. It takes about one year and then it's too late: you're completely under their control," she remembered.

"It was such a smooth, planned, deliberate process.

"At first, they treat you like a princess. They make you feel wanted, cared for and ask you about your life and your family. They buy you gifts and make you the centre of their attention.

"That goes on for about six months, by which time you've told them so much that they know exactly what to say to get under your skin. Slowly they turn you against your family.

"I was so wrapped up in them that I believed what they told me without questioning it. I thought they were so wise; that they knew everything. I thought they were the only people I could trust.

"When you're dependent on them emotionally, they tie you even closer with drugs and alcohol. They got me addicted to crack cocaine first, then started giving me heroin. They once gave me a massive overdose and I nearly died.

"I was resuscitated by an ambulance man who realised what had happened to me even though I had no idea: I didn't even know what drug it was that I'd been given. I was like a zombie.

"The next stage of the grooming process happens once you're completely dependent on them," she said. "At this point, they begin flicking between attentive and being suddenly rude and aggressive. But even before they begin explicitly threatening you, you instinctively know something really bad will happen to you if you don't do what they want."

The sexual abuse was the second stage of the grooming process, she said. "It took six months for sex with one person to start. The man who targeted me said he loved me.

"But soon the switch flicked and he started saying things like: 'You have to [sleep with other men] for me because of all the things I have bought for you and done for you.' By that point the threats and the violence become explicit.

"You know that refusing would be really dangerous but by that point it doesn't occur to you to refuse: you're too much of a zombie. You're completely at their mercy."

When Girl C became pregnant at 16, she tried to escape but the threats became worse. "They said that I had to work for them in another way, by recruiting younger girls to do the jobs I was saying I wouldn't do any more. I couldn't do that but because I refused, I had to carry on working for them, doing what I'd been doing before."

After she had given birth to her baby, Girl C tried once again to escape. "I was desperate to get away but I was too terrified: they threatened to chop my son's head off and put it in a suitcase, and then kill me and my mum.

"I knew they would do it, too. They're not human," she said. "I have no doubt they would have killed me and done it painfully and slowly.

"Eventually, I got to the point where I didn't dare to leave the house," she said. "Then one day, I just snapped and realised the only ways to get out of this were to commit suicide, be murdered or move with my family halfway across the country. Within a few months, we were gone."

Girl C agreed to give evidence against the gang in court. In January, she travelled to London and spent eight days in the witness box at the Old Bailey.

It was, she said, such a traumatic experience that, despite Tuesday's sentences, she would not go through it again and would advise other victims of sexual abuse not to do so either.

"The defence lawyer set out to destroy and humiliate me in court," she said. "The judge had to adjourn the hearing five times to make him stop various lines of questioning because they were so aggressive and awful.

"I understand they have to question me but that defence lawyer tried to destroy me. I almost gave up a number of times and walked away.

"In the end, I stuck it out but I was traumatised by the experience. I'm on antidepressants now as a result," she said.

Girl C said she knew other girls in Oxfordshire who were being "groomed and abused by other gangs in exactly the same way that I was".

"I know some of these girls personally," she said. "I know for a fact that they've been let down and failed by social services in the early stages of their grooming process, just as I was failed, and as a result, they won't tell anyone what's happening – and the abuse just continues." Source

India woman speak out on “sex marriages” with wealthy Arabs

Geeta is 19-years-old. She is attending a local university in Varanasi, but she is unmarried and her family is not well off. As a result, she became the victim of what has been described in the country as “sex marriages” with wealthy Arab men, who come to the country on business trips and purchase Indian women to be their wives for a certain period of time.

She recently sat down with Bikyanews.com to discuss her ordeal with who she described as a “Saudi Arabian man” who had paid her family some $2,000 for one month of “services.”

“I couldn’t go through with it after the first week. It was horrible,” she said, asking that her surname remain anonymous.

For her, it began in February, when a man appeared at her house, offered money to her family and then had a “Qazi” – or Muslim cleric in charge of marriages – come to the house to marry the couple. In the contract, she said, there would be an automatic divorce after the man left the country.

“I was taken away to a hotel where he forced me to have sex with him repeatedly for days. It was rape and I didn’t know what to do,” she revealed.

After only a week with the man, forced to remain in the hotel as he went to business meetings, she packed her few belongings and fled, finding refuge at a friend’s house. There, she has remained, refusing to speak to her family and seeing a psychiatrist on a regular basis to help overcome the anguish and struggle she was forced to endure.

“I will never speak to my family after what they did. I was a sex worker and forced to do things against my will. I am shocked and so sad that this happened. I know other girls who are forced into similar things and it is wrong that our police and government do nothing,” she argued.

Women’s rights activists in the country have pointed out that these short term “contract marriages” are illegal in India and supposed to be illegal in Islamic law, but they are increasing across the country. In a recent Telegraph report, Hyderabad is becoming the central location for the marriages, as wealthy Arab businessmen come to the city in search of girls and young women to “service” them for their stay in India.

In a similar case, Inspector Vijay Kumar reported that one man “had paid 100,000 Rupees (around £1,200) to the girl’s aunt Mumtaz Begum, who in turn paid 70,000 Rupees to her parents, 5,000 Rupees to the Qazi, 5,000 Rupees to an Urdu translator and kept 20,000 Rupees herself. The wedding certificate came with a ‘Talaknama’ which fixed the terms of the divorce at the end of the groom’s holiday.

“The next day he came to the house of the victim girl and asked her to participate in sex but she refused. She is a young girl and the groom is older than her father,” Inspector Kumar told The Telegraph.

It is part of an ongoing debate over women’s issues in the country and one that is seeing young girls and women being used by families suffering from poverty. For social workers in the country, from Varanasi to Hyderabad to Mumbai and Delhi, they are seeing a rise in these marriages.

“We are having to deal with women and girls coming to our offices on a regular basis seeking help and we have to keep it silent for fear their families will force them again to go into these situations,” one social worker told Bikyanews.com in Delhi. “We just want the government and police to arrest these men and family members who are forcing their daughters into sex work.” Source

Modern Day Child Prostitution in Kabul, Afghanistan: Children are used as Sex Workers in Afghanistan to Serve Foreigners

When we hear about the news in Afghanistan, the mainstream media tells us stories of explosions and deaths of military personnel and civilians. A story that is not being told is of child prostitution slavery in Afghanistan.

“There is a police operation going on by a neighborhood police chief in Kabul that has girls working for him,” says German contractor Hans, who does not want to release his last name for security reasons.

“You know prostitution is legal in Germany and I don’t mind paying a fair price for a sex worker, but here in Afghanistan the prostitutes are children, teenagers and that is where I draw the line. I have a 14-year-old daughter back home in Germany and I do not condone child prostitution,” says Hans.

A 15-year-old named Badria Durrani says, “I was forced into prostitution because the police in the area said they will arrest my father. My father is just a baker and he does not want any trouble with the police, so I work as a prostitute having sex with foreigners because that is what the police want me to do.”

Badria’s father Mohammed Durrani says “I did not agree, but the police threaten to throw me in jail, so I agreed because I have to support my 3 wives and 8 children as a baker. With the extra income my daughter makes after she pays the police their 40% share, the rest of the money is for our family.”

“Also, the police told me not to worry. My daughter will only serve foreigners so Afghan men will not know that she is a prostitute and later she will be able to find an Afghan husband for marriage,” says Mohammed.

“I don’t want to do this anymore but what choice do I have? If I run away my father will be thrown in jail and then our family does not have money to pay for rent and will be kicked out of our home. I have to sacrifice my life for our family. I hate this government and these foreigners that come here to have sex with girls my age, but the government here is not protecting us. They send these police from the north of Afghanistan to take advantage of us,” says Badria.

A 12-year-old girl named Ara Atta says, “My father was killed by the Americans because he did not stop his car at a checkpoint, trying to take my mother to the hospital because she was going into labor. The Americans shot at the car and killed my father but my mother was not harmed and taken to the hospital and my brother Ibrahim was born.”

“The police told my mother that she will not receive my father’s retirement check for working at the Ministry of Agriculture unless I work as a prostitute serving foreigners. My mother at first refused but she relented once the police told her that I would be able to keep 60% of the pay and be able to keep supporting my mom and 6 brothers and sisters and the other 40% would go to the police,” says Ara.

Ara further stated, “I don’t want to do this but we have no choice. If I run away, the police will ensure that we will not receive my father’s retirement check. I curse them and the foreigners that are using my body for sex but I have to do this or my mother and siblings will go hungry and we will be out in the street because we don’t have money for rent.”

The invasion of Afghanistan by the United States and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) offered the Afghan people democracy and social changes for women through education and new careers that were closed to them under the Taliban.

What has actually happened here in Afghanistan is that the government institutions that were established by the U.S. and ISAF, such as the Afghan Police, are using female children and women for profit to serve foreigners as their sex slaves.

Source

‘But She Looks So Good’: When Men’s Desires Rule

Heart racing, Salihah lifted her nine-year-old daughter from the bed and clumsily carried her to the living room. Salihah’s legs nearly collapsed under the weight of the sleeping girl, but Salihah didn’t have time to wake Noor. They needed to leave—now.

Malik would be home any minute, and Salihah wanted to leave before her husband returned.

Outside in the car, Salihah’s hand trembled as she buckled Noor’s seatbelt. Salihah stepped back to close the door, but the sound of Noor moaning and stirring in her sleep halted Salihah’s movements.

For a moment, Salihah studied the soft, innocent features of her daughter’s face, and tears filled her eyes. What kind of mother am I? How could I have been so blind to what was happening?

Salihah sighed as she shut the back door and slid into the driver’s seat. Her heart was heavy as she pulled out of the driveway to her home and steered the car into the quiet street.

She had no idea where she was going, but she knew she had to get away. She felt terrible that she hadn’t left the day Noor told her what Malik had been doing—for more than a year.

“Tell her to wear hijab at home,” the imam had advised a distraught and shaken Salihah three weeks after Noor had broken down and told her mother what had happened. “And it’s probably best if she doesn’t sing or dance in the home anymore.”

“Mommy, mommy, watch this!” In the car, tears slipped down Salihah’s cheeks as she recalled her daughter’s bursting energy two years before. At seven years old Noor was all laughs and giggles as she showed her mother a silly dance routine that she and her friends had thought of.

If Noor and her “girl crew” (as Noor called them) were feeling particularly energetic, they’d think of some silly lyrics to sing along to their routine as they showed it off to their mothers.

Salihah clinched her jaw as she recalled how stupid she’d been to think a childhood friend of Malik’s could give her “Islamic” advice.

“She’s an attractive little girl,” the imam had said, an apologetic grin on his face. “That’s not an easy situation for men, especially stepfathers.”

‘Oh Allah, Muslims Too?’

Growing up, I often heard stories about sexual abuse and oppression of women, and I always found them bizarre.

Their horrific reality was so far removed from my sheltered existence that I couldn’t fathom them beyond the plot of a chilling, fictional drama. But as I got older, I began to see the world around me for what it was: fragile, dangerous, and often terrifying. And I began to realize that the loving, spiritually-rich home that defined my childhood was not what defined that of thousands of other people.

As naïve as it sounds to me today, as a youth, the most incomprehensible reality for me to face was that Muslims were amongst the thousands of sufferers—and oppressors. I know now that this naiveté was born from a deeply rooted concept of Islam that I held in my heart and mind.

When I was a child, my parents—through word and deed—instilled in me and my siblings what it meant to be Muslim, and I innocently imagined that all Muslim parents had done the same.

‘But You’re a Fitnah to Men’

Years ago when my family moved from America to Saudi Arabia, I was in the new country only a short time before I experienced one of my first “spiritual culture shocks”. Though I was wearing the full, all-black, Saudi-style abaya (veil) and face veil, I was told I should also cover my eyes.

“If a camel were to wear a face veil, it would be attractive,” someone told me, repeating what her husband had told her that a prominent sheikh had said (and apparently what he had told her to tell me so that I would be inspired to be a “better Muslim”).

Maybe it was the “American” in me, but when I first heard this, I had to suppress laughter. But I maintained my composure and told her that, as a Muslim, I coverbased on the words of Allah and His Messenger, peace be upon him, not based on the words of a man—no matter how “knowledgeable” he is  known to be.

“But it’s a fitnah [a tremendous trial and difficulty] for men,” she said. “What if a man sees your eyes and gets attracted to you?”

“The only person I have to protect from fitnah is me,” I said, hoping she could hear with her heart more than her ears. “And it’s a fitnah for me to carry on my shoulders the burden of men’s desires. I fear for my soul if I were to believe that it’s my responsibility to make sure men never desire me. My Lord didn’t put that burden on me, and I refuse to put it on myself.”

‘They Don’t Know Islam’

It was after repeated encounters with Muslims who believed that I needed to cover my eyes (and went through great lengths to convince me of my “crime”) that I had the epiphany.

For years I had been confounded by incidents of oppression of girls and women (which many predominately-Muslim cultures were guilty of). And for the life of me, I couldn’t muster even a partial understanding of what led to such madness in people who professed to be Muslims.

They don’t have Islam in their lives.

It was something my parents had said repeatedly while I was growing up: Islam is a way of life, and any “Muslim” who doesn’t understand this—in word and deed—doesn’t have Islam in their lives. “No, I’m not saying they are not Muslim,” my father would say. “I’m saying they don’t know Islam.”

‘But She Looks So Good’

Allah says,“On no soul does Allah place a burden greater than it can bear…”—Al-Baqarah, 2:286.

Yet it is unfortunate that humans place on one another burdens greater than they can bear.

Amongst Muslims, some go as far as to teach something similar to that of the ancient Christian church: that females’ very existence is a perpetual curse—and that even Allah’s guidelines are not sufficient in protecting them from harming themselves and others.

A girl is sexually abused and is told to wear hijab at home…

A woman obeys Allah and is told she’s still in sin….

Why?

“Because she looks so good”

But this twisted thinking comes only from those whose lives have not been graced with the beauty of Islam. So it is our obligation to share with them Allah’s message…

And to let them know that it is not men’s desires that rule human life in this world.

It is the desires of Allah.

And the only fitnah that should inspire anyone—man or woman—to make changes in life is the fitnah of ignoring these desires.

 source

Hostility on the Internet

Women in Pakistan are being harassed and are encountering hostility via social networks on the Internet. At the same time, many women's rights activists see the web as a new way to further their work. By Marcus Michaelsen

If a Pakistani woman journalist denounces child abuse and sexual harassment on Twitter, it can happen that she is threatened with rape. "I've received vile, detailed messages from random strangers who decide to tell me my home address and then live out their rape fantasies online."

Another women's rights activist has experienced a similar response. "Almost every time I talk about taboo issues on Facebook, Twitter or my blog, I receive hundreds of hate comments. Most of these involve calling me an atheist, an evil woman and an agent of the West. Most of them tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about and should 'go back to the kitchen'."

Both women have published their experiences on the Pakistani 'Take Back the Tech' campaign website, which draws attention to the issue of violence against women and seeks to promote the active use of digital media by women. The campaign originated in 2006 as part of the Association for Progressive Communications, a network that promotes human rights and development with the help of new communications technologies.

Since then, branches have sprung up in more than 20 countries. Last December, the network launched an important activity that focussed on 'digital storytelling'. In a series of short videos and articles posted on the Internet, women spoke about their own experiences of violence and abuse, but also of self-assertion and personal maturity.

Attacks on women with strong opinions

Nighat Dad, managing director of the Digital Rights Foundation in Pakistan, has observed that as use of the Internet becomes more widespread, more women are taking part in online debates about politics, religion, and sexuality. "All this is challenging the status quo and stereo types in an online space where there is a visible dominance of male internet users. When they see it is hard to win the arguments with women, they start abusing them and challenge their intellect and brain power," she says.

Besides attacks against women with strong opinions, there are also new forms of harassment and abuse on the net. Take Back the Tech documents the case of a Facebook profile, that was spreading stolen private photos of a young Pakistani woman on the web accompanied by offensive comments. The photos then appeared on websites with personal ads or combined with pornographic images.

Women are also being secretly photographed or stalked with the use of mobile telephones. The journalist Saba Imtiaz described in an article how many Pakistani women are besieged with text messages from unknown men. They obviously get the telephone numbers either through random calls or covertly from delivery services or the staff of mobile telephone providers.

Of course, the new media only reflect the realities of society. Sexual violence against women is widespread in Pakistan. According to a poll conducted by the Dutch Rutgers World Population Foundation, 66 per cent of Pakistani women have at some time or another experienced violence. This is primarily attributed to poverty, lack of education, and social tension.

An additional problem is that in Pakistan's conservative society, the behaviour of women is closely linked to questions of honour and morality. Professor Farzana Bari, women's rights activist, has demanded in the Express Tribune newspaper that the perceptions of gender roles must be fundamentally altered in Pakistan. In order to combat violence against women, women need to be given greater financial, social, and legal support.

Yet, it was only in 2010 that a law against the harassment of women in the workplace was introduced. A law against domestic violence, on the other hand, has been delayed due to opposition from Islamic organizations, who have warned of an undermining of traditions and religious values.

Lack of discretion

Correspondingly, the means to act against harassment on the Internet are also limited. A proposed law on cybercrime, which has been under discussion for years, is concerned only with crimes such as fraud and data theft. The organization Bytes For All, which champions freedom of opinion on the Internet in Pakistan, also complains that the police and judicial authorities seldom display the necessary discretion in cases of sexual violence, whether online or elsewhere.

It is therefore all the more important to alert users to the risks. Bytes for All has created an interactive map that documents incidents of violence and harassment. In addition, the organization offers courses in online security. A poster campaign carried out on social networks calls for the use of digital media without restrictions.

It is not only a matter of counteracting self-censorship, which, according to Nighat Dad, is how many women react to slander and aggression on the net. References to religion and morality also offer the pretext for state intervention in the digital sphere. In May 2010, the government shut down access to Facebook for two weeks because a competition involving Mohammed caricatures was being held on a member's profile.

YouTube has also been blocked in Pakistan since an anti-Islamic video provoked angry protests in September. Although the furore has long since died down, the Pakistani parliament recently recommended extending the blackout of the Internet platform. Shahzad Ahmand, director of Bytes for All, warns of the misuse of religion to further politically motivated censorship. After all, amateur videos documenting corruption and human rights abuses in the country have frequently been uploaded to YouTube in the past.

Strategies against state control

Last year, a minor victory was achieved against the state's need to impose controls. The government had announced a call for bids to set up of a national Internet filtering system. The justification was based on the need to combat pornography and blasphemy and to protect national security. With a clever campaign and international support, Pakistani network activists managed to force a provisional suspension of the plan.

Farieha Aziz took part in the campaign. Together with the blogger Sana Saleem, the journalist founded the organization Bolo Bhi (Speak Louder). Both women make use of their media experience to campaign for women's rights and freedom of expression. According to Farieha Aziz, Twitter and Facebook have opened new doors for activists to get their messages across to the public. If an issue garners sufficient attention on the net, then other media will sit up and take notice.

At the same time, social networks can help to correct reports from the press and television. When reports of rape were published including the names of victims, protests in social networks succeeded in bringing about a change to this unethical editorial policy, says Aziz. Internet users reacted similarly to a broadcast by the television presenter Maya Khan, who asked young couples in public parks on camera if they were married or not. Khan was forced to apologise and was subsequently fired.

There are many aspects to the struggle for freedom of expression and equal rights in Pakistan. As these women activists have shown through their experiences, digital media can serve both as a tool and a venue for action.

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