ISLAMABAD: PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has termed Prime Minister Imran Khan’s remarks on women’s dressing “unfortunate”, saying that the clothes a woman wears or the way she dresses, has nothing to do with sexual violence.
Talking to reporters at the Parliament House on Tuesday evening, the PPP Chairman said Imran Khan held the post of premier of the country and that was why he should weigh every word as he spoke.
“Clothing has nothing to do with rape. There should be a uniform law for the sexual abusers and the survivors,” he said, adding, “We should always support the survivor and not give any excuse to the perpetrator.”
“When a prime minister says such things, the message that goes across is that you are justifying the culprit for the crime they have committed and holding the survivor responsible for it,” Bilawal Bhutto added.
He further said our culture and religion taught us how to dress. “You should compare The Prime Minister’s statements before he came to power with what he is been saying now.”
He also pointed out that PM Imran did not even have the courage to call out a ‘terrorist’. “He is a coward from day one. He is not even ready to call former TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan a terrorist, the man responsible for the death of children in the Army Public School attack,” he claimed.
“Osama bin Laden tried to attack then prime minister Benazir Bhutto in 1993 through Ramzi Yousef,” he said, asking, “Doesn’t Imran Khan know that bin Laden tried to revolt in the name of Islam in 1994?”
Prime Minister Imran Khan’s comments
Prime Minister Imran Khan has once again drawn intense criticism after he reiterated that a rise in sexual assault cases was linked to how women dress.
In an interview on HBO, interviewer Jonathan Swan asks if the PM thinks what women wear has any effect on the temptation that leads to rapes. To which, PM Khan said, “If a woman is wearing very few clothes, it will have an impact on the men, unless they’re robots. I mean it is common sense.”
Swan further asked, “But is it really going to provoke acts of sexual violence?” Maintaining his stance, Khan proceeds to elaborate, “It depends on which society you live in.”
“If in a society people haven’t seen that sort of thing, it will have an impact on them. Growing up in a society like yours, maybe won’t impact you. This cultural imperialism, whatever is in our culture must be acceptable to everyone else,” he added.
