Ssshhh.. Don’t Talk About it!!

Most of us have been listening this phrase from our elders in the daily life affairs which apparently mean we ‘should not’ discuss the matter with anybody. In fact discussion comes later; first one has to talk about it. The reason of avoiding the talk on the matter could be the hidden fear – what if the reality may be exposed.. what if our children start blaming us if they know the truth.. or the most common one; ‘ Kahin woh bigar na jayen’

I regard all of them as lame excuses. I believe, no knowledge is bad and truth must be exposed in front of all; if you don’t expose it, others will do that some day and also they would blame you for hiding the truth because this hide and seek of reality would have harmed many people.

According to Sociology; “A taboo is a strong social prohibition (or ban) relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and forbidden based on moral judgment and sometimes even religious beliefs. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society.” 1

Western society has over come ‘tooboetic nature’ of their taboos with the passage of time as they became open to different sociological issues. Despite their social ills, we should admit that they have got courage to face the ‘truth’ and bring that on ‘table’ for discussion. Here, I want to clear that I’m concerned about the social taboos; in the whole discussion, I would not talk about the international politics.

People who ask to put things under the carpet just to show that ‘it’s all clean here’ actually create grounds for many other vulnerable individuals to suffer from that.

If we don’t talk about domestic violence on women in our houses as extreme as acid attacks, just because of our dignity and an artificially created image of ‘sophisticated-Islamic society’ – would it not happen? On contrary, it would occur more often because offenders know that their crime will go unnoticed this time again.

I have been following some cases of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) taking place in the country. According to SAHIL – An Islamabad based NGO, working exclusively on the issue of CSA reported that the data of six months from January to June 2010 reveals that a total of 1216 children (including boys and girls) were sexually abused throughout Pakistan which means approximately 6 children per day are being sexually abused. Another harsh reality to mention here is that these are the figures according to the reported cases, as the issue is taboo in the society so the actual number might be much higher.2

Some of us may not agree with the above statistics as they may think how it can be possible in an Islamic cum eastern state. My answer to those innocent fellows is that, everything happens everywhere, it’s just that some people face the reality and others hide it. Most of the people in Pakistan don’t register their voice; raising the voice is a step ahead though.

The social issues will never get resolved unless we face them, talk about them, and fight for their solutions collectively. Hiding things under the carpet won’t actually clean the thing unless we clean it ourselves. By doing this may be our own hands get little dirty but we can always wash them. But those innocent yet vulnerable individuals who are at risk and are not being helped because of your silence, can not be able to ‘wash’ their scars & stains throughout their entire lives.



1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taboo
2 www.sahil.org