As Pakistan PM Imran Khan has been at the receiving end over his bizarre statement of linking rape and sexual violence to how women dress, his ex-wife Jemima Goldsmith has also reacted to his remarks. Being one of the ex-wives of Imran Khan and seemingly aware of his antics, Jemima did not comment much on the matter but took to Twitter and retweeted an old tweet, adding: “And again. Sigh.”
In her old tweet, she had recalled an incident she encountered in Saudi Arabia when she met an elderly Saudi woman, fully covered, who was complaining about being “followed and harassed” by young men. “The problem is not how women dress,” she strongly asserted in response to Imran Khan, without making any direct mention.
Outrage against Imran Khan’s statement
Several women from different sections of societies and nationalities across the world have lambasted the Pakistan Prime Minister for his brazen remark on women’s dressing. Among them was Taslima Nasreen, the renowned author who shared a shirtless picture of Imran Khan, and taking a sarcastic jibe at the Prime Minister, wrote, “If a man is wearing very few clothes, it will have an impact on women unless they are robots.”
This kind of retaliation from women across the world has occurred as the cricketer turned politician during an interview with ‘Axios on HBO’, cited women wearing ‘few clothes’ as the reason behind increasing sexual violence cases. He said,” If a woman is wearing very few clothes, it will have an impact on the men unless they are robots. It’s just common sense. It depends upon which society you live in. If in a society people have not seen those types of things it will have an impact on them. This cultural imperialism must be acceptable to everyone else.”
It is pertinent to note that this is not the first time Imran Khan has made such a comment. Earlier, in an interview with Geo News, he had made similar comments stating that the cases of sexual violence or rapes are a product of obscenity which he described as a ‘Western Import’.
During the interview, the Pakistan Prime Minister was asked how his government plans to curb the rising cases of sexual violence, especially against children. On that, he had cited ‘fahashi’ (vulgarity) as the reason for the rise of rape and sexual violence in the country and went on to highlight the ‘Purdah’ system to remove the temptation because ‘not everyone has willpower’.
According to reports from November 2020, as many as 11 rape incidents were reported in Pakistan every day, with over 22,000 cases reported in the last six years. However, the conviction rate of these crimes is only 0.03 percent, as only 77 of the accused were convicted till then.
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