Film dispute opens dialogue of rape, injustice in Pakistan
Movie inspires women to join in #MeToo effort
ISLAMABAD — A Pakistani film about a rape victim who fights to bring her politically powerful attacker to justice has rankled Pakistan’s censors but emboldened women to speak out about sexual assault in a country where the discussion of such topics is discouraged.
The film — which overcame an initial ban imposed because of its subject matter — has inspired Pakistani women to tap into the spirit of the viral #MeToo campaign to expose sexual harassment and create their own public platform for victims and their supporters.
With the Pakistani film industry struggling to survive and wary of issue-oriented projects, the film’s release has provided a timely opportunity to talk about a difficult topic.
In the film, “Verna,” Pakistan’s most popular and highest-paid actress, Mahira Khan, plays a teacher who is abducted and raped repeatedly by the son of a regional governor. After failing to get justice from the police or the courts, the teacher takes matters into her own hands.
Ban lifted
Pakistan’s Central Board of Film Censors banned the film for its “edgy content,” which the board said was “maligning state institutions.” But a public outcry, fueled by extensive news coverage and a social media campaign, #UnbanVerna, bore fruit when an appellate board lifted the ban. The film opened Nov. 17 and has done moderately well at the box office.
Last month, in the wake of accusations of sexual harassment and assault against the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and a growing number of other powerful figures in the United States, Pakistani social media platforms were flooded with messages from women with their own tales of abuse and rape. One digital media company, ProperGaanda, posted a video of men reading the real stories of Pakistani victims.
“It’s so ironic that at the heels of a global #MeToo moment, a fictional piece about a rape survivor fighting with authorities is banned, bringing the problem even more to the forefront of debate in Pakistan,” said Iram Parveen Bilal, a Pakistani filmmaker based in Los Angeles who has publicly praised the film.
Khan, the lead actress, said the film was a part of the #MeToo movement insofar as it sent the message that remaining silent in the face of injustice was “no longer an option.”
“That’s what my character in the film does, she speaks out — and that’s what Pakistani media, audiences, social media users and fans have done by asking for the film to be unbanned,” she said in a recent interview.
Khan, who previously starred in an Indian film with Shah Rukh Khan, perhaps Bollywood’s biggest name, said the censors had objected to her film largely because it dealt with political and sexual inequalities in Pakistani society.
“People spoke up for my film because they understand that rape is not just an act of sexual frustration; it is an act of showing power,” Khan said. “And when people came out and said unban this film, what they were saying was, we won’t let these powerful people intimidate us anymore.”
‘Ready to talk’
The film is reminiscent of the real-life case of Mukhtar Mai, who was gang-raped as a teenager in 2002 on the orders of a village council as a punishment for her younger brother’s affair with a woman. Instead of killing herself, as rape victims sometimes do in rural Pakistan, she pressed charges against her attackers and became an international campaigner for women’s rights.
But Mai’s work has earned her many enemies, including powerful feudal lords and Pervez Musharraf, the president at the time of her case, who said crying rape was an easy way to make money or get a foreign passport.
“There is always a reaction to a strong woman who wants to fight, who wants to go public with injustice, whether it’s a real Mukhtaran Mai or a fictional representation of someone like her,” said Bilal, the filmmaker. “But what is important is that people in Pakistan are ready to talk about and tackle these issues.”