Culture is a set of ideas, believes and acts of people of a specific land. Culture is about how things work. People learn their beliefs and identities through the channel of culture. They are rewarded by the people of their society for attitude that is coherent with their culture and bashed for doing things that are not in line with culture. Pakistani culture is a mixed one. Different ethnicities, different sects and different people speaking different languages make the face of Pakistan. Our culture is not completely violent but it will not be wrong to say that there are some harmful cultural beliefs that give birth to violent practices. It is unfortunately true that our culture models reinforces violence, some of the examples are given below:

Violence Against Women: Violence against women is a very diverse topic. In our culture, mainly, the rights of women are violated because they are considered to be fragile and submissive. Majority of men in this country are of the view that women are made as “mere helpers” of men and they are not equal companions. Boys try to control their sisters at very young ages. Parents of boys consider their daughters to be more safe and guarded when their brothers are around (even if the brother is four years old). Husbands consider that they have full control over their wives. That their wives are “made” to follow all of their orders regardless of being right or wrong. This idea makes men think that they are superior than women. Religious misinterpretations further strengthen this idea.

The Concept of Honour:  The concepts of honour in some parts of Pakistan has taken away many lives. The whole weight of honour of family is put on the shoulders of daughters and daughter in laws. If the daughters and daughter in laws of family do something that is against the honour of family, the least punishment they get is that they are beaten up or forcefully married to someone who is not liked by them while the highest punishment is death. The idea of honour is modeled in the brains of young boys and reinforced by rewarding boys on protecting their family’s honour by punishing their sisters or wives.

Divorce and Dowry: Dowry is the only guarantee of getting respected in the in-laws in some parts of Pakistan. Women in some parts of Pakistan face violence for not bringing dowry. Divorced women also sometimes face violence.

Domestic Violence: Domestic violence is one of the highly unattended problems of Pakistan. It is still considered as an “internal matter” culturally.

Books and Movies: Books, Movies, and songs in our culture are not well sensitized and they sow the seeds of violence in young minds. It is shown in movies that boys who have guns are cool. Guns are a symbol of violence. Consent of women is not considered: In our culture, NO of woman is considered as yes. Her consent is not important. This results in incidents of acid attacks, rape, sexual harrassment and other violence.

Victim Blaming: Rape victims are blamed in our culture. This behaviour encourages the perpetrators to be more violent.

Domestic violence is not limited to women and girls. It affects generations and whole of the society at large. It is being observed that children have a live exposure to domestic violence and they learn violence at homes. It is very difficult for a domestic violence victim to come to normal life especially when he culture breeds violence. It’s high time to we resew our societal fabric and eradicate harmful and anti-women cultural norms from our society.