Pakistani-Canadian writer Zahra Haider has decided to expose the injustice, misogyny she faced when she was a teenager and revealed that she was sexually abused on two different occasions.
Zahra Haider highlighted that there is an ongoing rape crisis in Pakistan and lamented the lack of sex education or consent in the country. She said dozens of women are raped on a daily basis but do not receive justice but she has decided she will not let history repeat itself.
She said she has spent years blaming herself over these incidents and but now has the courage to publish them. “I have spent years blaming myself over these incidents. this is reclamation. this is power. this is a privilege,” she said.
this is far overdue. the courage it took to publish, let alone write this, is immense. I have spent years blaming myself over these incidents. this is reclamation. this is power. this is privilege. I have the voice and the space to use it, whereas many Pakistani women, do not. pic.twitter.com/4HdFDHdcAM
— Zahra Haider (@zarahaider) March 4, 2021
Haider has penned down two horrifying rape incidents where she became a victim of sexual predators and decided to post those incidents on her Twitter account.
Referring to a man named Farooq Nauman, she revealed how he forced himself on her in 2010 when she was just 15-years-old and he was 19 at that time. One day on their way from actor Hamza Ali Abbasi’s party to their home in Islamabad, she alleged that Nauman forcibly raped her while she was drunk.
According to her, he had the audacity to call two days after the rape incident and talked casually and denied that the incident ever happened. She said she was “raped” eleven years ago and that it is the truth of which others are aware.
Haider in her second confrontation statement has talked about another man, who she alleged raped her back in 2013 in Canada when she was drunk. When she had confronted him in 2019, he simply gaslighted her.
The third and the last incident was about Shayan Mahmud who she was dating in January 2016 but once again without her consent, he had forced himself on her in a hotel room in Islamabad.
In another tweet, Zahra wrote that there is an ongoing rape crisis in Pakistan, at least a dozen women are raped every day. no justice is served. “No sex education or consent education is considered. I will not allow history to repeat itself,” she tweeted.
