KARACHI: Increasing fear of sexual assault and mistrust in police after the gang rape of a mother in front of her children on one of Pakistan's main motorways earlier this month, made more women look for pepper sprays and pocketknives to protect themselves.

Violence against women is endemic in Pakistan, but the brutality of the recent attack has shocked the public. According to reports, two armed men had found the woman alone when her car run out of fuel on the road from Lahore to Gujranwala in Punjab province. They raped her at gunpoint.

After the incident, Lahore Capital City Police Muhammad Umar Sheikh told the media it was the woman's fault because she did not check her car's fuel.  

"After the motorway rape incident and victim blaming by the police, it has become clear in our minds that the government and institutions are not serious about women's protection,” Shabina Rehman, a medicine student in Pakistan's megacity Karachi, told Arab News.

She said she had been looking on Facebook for recommendations where she could buy a taser or a stun gun, and pepper spray or a pocketknife to protect herself.

"I'm soon going to get my hands on a taser and a pocketknife. And not just for myself, for my sisters as well,” she said.

Rehman is one among the hundreds of girls in the seaside megapolis, which is known for high crime rates, who have recently ordered self-defense accessories online.  
"I think it's the need of the time sadly, since perverts are not changing their mentality and there is no law to stop them. We need to teach our kids, irrespective of their gender, to be able to defend themselves," Lala Rukh, a working woman in Karachi, told Arab News.

Daraz PK, one of the country's top online stores, was out of stock of self-defense items this week. Aisha Raza, representative of another online store, Shop USA, told Arab News that demand for pepper spray had increased by 70 percent during the past week.

To meet the growing demand, a woman entrepreneur with a background in chemistry, has launched a new product and introduced to a closed group. It burns the skin and is "a better performer than pepper spray," the description said.  

"The formula was always at the back of my mind. With all the rape incidences I started getting a lot of requests," she told Arab News on condition of anonymity. "I make homemade organic skin and hair care products so many of my clients knew that I had that skill. I never make things to harm people. However, in current situation, I thought it would be justified to help womenfolk."

According to War Against Rape (WAR), a nongovernment organization working to stop violence against women, 545 cases of sexual assaults, 407 of them rape incidents were recorded at three major hospitals of Karachi where victims sought medical help in 2019. The actual number is likely to be manifold greater as most rape incidents in Pakistan go unreported.  

"Sexual and gender-based violence in Pakistan is a crime that is underreported, and with an extremely low conviction rate, just under 3 percent," WAR program officer Sheraz Ahmed said. "This has badly shattered the trust of women in the system."

Ahmed told Arab News that victims are reluctant to report the crime because insensitive police investigations, medico-legal examination and at court sessions further traumatize them.  

"We have just four women medico-legal officers in three hospitals of Karachi. The police don’t collect evidence properly and harass the victim during interrogation, due to corruption, gender insensitivity and political influences," he said, adding that women would not have to resort to buying pepper spray or knives if law enforcers were properly trained to deal with sexual violence cases.

Naghma Iqtidar, a Karachi-based woman activist, said the trend of using self-defense products is dangerous as they may be misused. She said it has emerged because the justice system is weak, but for a better future women "should push the state to protect them by enforcing laws."

"We will have to implement the laws and consider women as human being," said Mehnaz Rehman, resident director of rights group Aurat Foundation.

"Women are going towards adopting self-protection, which is a manifestation of mistrust over a system that has filed to protect women."

Some of the names have been changed to protect identity.