Suffer the children
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There’s never a shortage of horror stories in these parts, but there are some that stand out even among the near-daily lists of atrocities and outrages.
One such story began with what should have been a happy occasion: Shahzaib Khan and Mashal Fatima, both residents of Mianwali who had married two years ago, were blessed with a baby daughter. As per tradition and practice, family members showed up to congratulate the couple only to learn that Shahzaib had not returned to his home ever since he learned that his wife had given birth to a girl. But then, a week after the birth, Shahzaib came home with a pistol in his hand and walked into the room where his wife was proudly showing her relatives the latest addition to the family. Brandishing the pistol, Shahzaib snatched the girl from her lap and shot the baby four times before fleeing. He had wanted a son, you see, and the fact that his wife had instead given birth to a daughter was intolerable.
After a manhunt, the baby killer was arrested and one hopes that he will not end up ‘forgiven’ by his family once the realities of life and court procedures dawn on them. After all, we’ve seen this story before and know how it tends to end.
But there are other realities that this brutal murder forces us to reckon with, realities that we would much rather sweep under the carpet or, quite literally, throw in the trash.
What happened in Mianwali brought to mind a case from 2014. 26-year-old Zaitoun and her husband had travelled to Karachi to find work; him as a watchman and her as a nanny in the same house. When Zaitoun realized she was pregnant she kept it from her husband, knowing that money was tight and that she would have to leave her job as a result of the pregnancy. When she no longer could hide it, her in laws told her to pray that it wouldn’t be a girl. Two days after the birth of her daughter, Zaitoun woke to find the baby missing and her husband gone. When he returned, she asked him what had become of their child and he simply replied that he had taken care of the problem. A few days later, the infant’s corpse was retrieved from a garbage dump near where they lived, from which at least three other infant bodies were previously retrieved. There are many more such men out there, many more such lives that were snuffed out before they had even begun.
What happened in Mianwali was monstrous, but we must recognize it is the symptom of an underlying disease we have not yet truly tried to diagnose.
Zarrar Khuhro
How many? In 2019, Edhi foundation reported that 375 bodies of newborns were found dumped in various parts of Karachi, which was double the number found the previous year. Most of these, according to Edhi, were girls. Given that, we can assume that the central factor at play is the patriarchal preference for boy children, a phenomenon rooted not just in misogyny but also in the desire to produce an ‘earning’ offspring instead of the financial and social ‘liability’ that too many consider girls to be.
But the figures from this year tell a different story: in the past two and a half months alone, 59 bodies of newborns have been retrieved from different areas of Karachi by the Edhi foundation alone and out of these 41 were of boys. This cannot be explained away as misogyny or patriarchy and so we must speculate as to what the reasons could be. Note also that Edhi foundation workers report that some of these babies seem to be born prematurely or with birth defects but in the absence of a proper study – none has ever been conducted – it is impossible to say for sure. One cannot even be certain how many of these were stillbirths and how many were simply left to die. However, if the trend holds, it indicates that factors beyond misogyny are at play here, and that economic factors may be prime among these; with increased economic hardships and a lack of access to, and acceptability for, contraceptives, it seems that parents (one or both) are opting to simply leave their children for dead. Then there is the factor of couples who have children out of wedlock and are unable or unwilling to bear the social stigma, and this is exacerbated by the fact that, in most cases, finding a safe and legal abortion provider- where one even exists- is impossible for such segments of society. Abortion laws in Pakistan remain vague at best and abortions are legal only in very limited circumstances. Even then, we often see that medical professionals will refuse to conduct even legal abortions due to their personal beliefs.
Finally, we must understand that the statistics do not tell the full story-- while they may allow us to tabulate cases of possible infanticide, they do not and cannot account for feticide which, according to anecdotal evidence, is on the increase as well and is disproportionately of female fetuses. Once again, hard data is impossible to come by given the nature of this issue and in many cases it seems miscarriages are induced without resorting to medical procedures to avoid both scrutiny and expense.
What happened in Mianwali was monstrous, but we must recognize it is the symptom of an underlying disease we have not yet truly tried to diagnose.
– Zarrar Khuhro is a Pakistani journalist who has worked extensively in both the print and electronic media industry. He is currently hosting a talk show on Dawn News.
Twitter: @ZarrarKhuhro
