Women’s harassment

FURTHER to Muzammil Mukhtar’s letter, ‘Frightening incident’ (Oct 20), I would like to add my voice of concern. I walk daily in the Model Town Central Park in Lahore and have watched the growing harassment of women by young men and the inability and lack of motivation of the security personnel to control it.

If a man and a woman are seated on a bench in full view of the jogging track, the security guards make a beeline for them on their motorbikes while continuously talking on their walkie-talkies, giving the impression of a most gallant warrior on his way to battle. Of course, the couples are always visibly poor and they quietly walk away. Any affluent couple is never approached.

Young men are getting increasingly more belligerent and misbehave with women, young and old, on the same track. The latest fad is using their cellphones to photograph women. Surprisingly, no security guard can be seen when this goes on. They are conveniently blind to these issues, and whenever I have complained, they have promised to be more vigilant in the future. This never happens and the anarchy and total decline of moral values continues. I have personally brought this to the notice of the management of the Model Town Society which is most indifferent — perhaps because they are not personally affected.

Several months ago, very highly-paid guards were deployed at the Park but they are as inefficient and ineffective as the lowly-paid ones before them.

The couple on the bench is there with mutual consent. I, on the other hand, do not wish to be photographed or ogled by delinquents. In closing, it would be in the fitness of things if the management of the Agricultural University in Faisalabad would take action against those responsible for this very act of extreme abuse.

GHAZALA REHMAN
Lahore
Source: Dawn
Date:10/22/2009