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There are 1.5 million street kids in Pakistan -- an estimated 90% of them have been sexually abused at some point in their lives.
Rape in Pakistan is so common, it’s barely taboo. Last week the Daily Mail interviewed a bus driver from Peshawar who says, after his shift is over, he likes to go into the slums and rape street kids. Sometimes he pays them a dollar. But often he doesn’t – he just joins in a big gang rape.
“Once, there was a boy on the bus and everyone had sex with him,” he told the Daily Mail. “I did it too but what else could I do? They invited me. And he was that kind of boy anyway.” He says he’s raped 12 different children.
This wasn’t a solitary rapist, hiding in the shadows, afraid of being seen or being caught. This was men joining together, unworried about social norms, unworried about someone stopping them.
A poll of 1,800 Pakistani men found that a third don’t think raping street kids is a crime – and they don’t even think it’s a bad thing to do.
And then there’s so-called honour killings – where families kill their own daughters for social improprieties, real or perceived.
Every year close to 1,000 Pakistani girls are murdered by their own fathers, brothers or even mothers, for “moral indiscretions” ranging from going out on a date to dressing in western clothing to marrying the wrong man.
What a horrific duality -- a country that has normalized the rape of children, but would rather murder its own daughters than have embarrassing gossip about them.
No wonder so many Pakistanis are happy to emigrate. Put aside the ongoing terrorist civil war, put aside official discrimination against minority religions, such as Christianity or even other Muslim denominations like the Ahmadiyyas -- Pakistan drives out its best, those who want a better life, a life of freedom and peace and safety.
Canada is the lucky recipient of many such immigrants. The Sun’s columnist Tarek Fatah is a perfect example of that – someone so Canadian he probably has maple syrup in his veins. But not all Pakistani immigrants prefer our liberal values to those of the Peshawar bus driver.
Aqsa Parvez was a young woman who was murdered by her father and her brother for the honour crime of dressing and acting like a Canadian teenager. They imported the worst of Pakistan to Mississauga
Rotherham, UK, has received another import: mass rape gangs. Between 1997 and 2013, that city of just 250,000 had 1,400 girls – as young as 11 – systematically “groomed," raped and prostituted by Pakistani gangs. Fourteen-hundred out of a city of 250,000. The girls were white Christians; in the eyes of the Pakistani Muslim gangs, they were sub-human, like Pakistan’s own street orphans.
Rotherham police knew all about it. But they were paralyzed with fear – fear of being called racist if they dared to act. They found the mass rape of a generation of the city’s girls less intolerable than the risk of being called politically incorrect or “Islamophobic."
Back to Canada. Pakistan is the fourth largest source of immigrants to our country – nearly 100,000 in the past decade. Most of them are wonderful, peaceful Canadians, like Tarek. But how many are like the Peshawar bus driver, or the Rotherham rape gangs, or Muhammad Parvez?
Pakistan, like some other Muslim countries, has a rape problem. Perhaps before opening up the floodgates, we might want to do something as simple as asking a prospective immigrant for their views on women, rape and honour.
Rape in Pakistan is so common, it’s barely taboo. Last week the Daily Mail interviewed a bus driver from Peshawar who says, after his shift is over, he likes to go into the slums and rape street kids. Sometimes he pays them a dollar. But often he doesn’t – he just joins in a big gang rape.
“Once, there was a boy on the bus and everyone had sex with him,” he told the Daily Mail. “I did it too but what else could I do? They invited me. And he was that kind of boy anyway.” He says he’s raped 12 different children.
This wasn’t a solitary rapist, hiding in the shadows, afraid of being seen or being caught. This was men joining together, unworried about social norms, unworried about someone stopping them.
A poll of 1,800 Pakistani men found that a third don’t think raping street kids is a crime – and they don’t even think it’s a bad thing to do.
And then there’s so-called honour killings – where families kill their own daughters for social improprieties, real or perceived.
Every year close to 1,000 Pakistani girls are murdered by their own fathers, brothers or even mothers, for “moral indiscretions” ranging from going out on a date to dressing in western clothing to marrying the wrong man.
What a horrific duality -- a country that has normalized the rape of children, but would rather murder its own daughters than have embarrassing gossip about them.
No wonder so many Pakistanis are happy to emigrate. Put aside the ongoing terrorist civil war, put aside official discrimination against minority religions, such as Christianity or even other Muslim denominations like the Ahmadiyyas -- Pakistan drives out its best, those who want a better life, a life of freedom and peace and safety.
Canada is the lucky recipient of many such immigrants. The Sun’s columnist Tarek Fatah is a perfect example of that – someone so Canadian he probably has maple syrup in his veins. But not all Pakistani immigrants prefer our liberal values to those of the Peshawar bus driver.
Aqsa Parvez was a young woman who was murdered by her father and her brother for the honour crime of dressing and acting like a Canadian teenager. They imported the worst of Pakistan to Mississauga
Rotherham, UK, has received another import: mass rape gangs. Between 1997 and 2013, that city of just 250,000 had 1,400 girls – as young as 11 – systematically “groomed," raped and prostituted by Pakistani gangs. Fourteen-hundred out of a city of 250,000. The girls were white Christians; in the eyes of the Pakistani Muslim gangs, they were sub-human, like Pakistan’s own street orphans.
Rotherham police knew all about it. But they were paralyzed with fear – fear of being called racist if they dared to act. They found the mass rape of a generation of the city’s girls less intolerable than the risk of being called politically incorrect or “Islamophobic."
Back to Canada. Pakistan is the fourth largest source of immigrants to our country – nearly 100,000 in the past decade. Most of them are wonderful, peaceful Canadians, like Tarek. But how many are like the Peshawar bus driver, or the Rotherham rape gangs, or Muhammad Parvez?
Pakistan, like some other Muslim countries, has a rape problem. Perhaps before opening up the floodgates, we might want to do something as simple as asking a prospective immigrant for their views on women, rape and honour.
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