When a girl was gáng-ráped by four men at the age of 13, her village named her a "black vírgin" and ordered to kill her.
According
to tradition, in the rural village of Dadu in southern Pakistan, Kainat
Soomro's own family should murder her, as her sexuál assault had made
her a token of disgrace.
Four years later, Kainat is alive and a documentary about her story is premiering on television in the US.
But that doesn't mean she or her family is safe. The movie Outlawed in Pakistanshows,
Kainat Soomro is still "destined to be killed" because she took the
step - extraordinary in Pakistan - of fighting for justice.
The
film is a testament to her family’s strength and endurance in a life
which has only become more difficult the longer they have stood up
against tradition.
The
Soomros have faced isolation, fear and intimidation from the four men
Kainat accused of ráping her, and from the members of the small village
who were afraid of challenging moral laws which have been in existence
for centuries.
By virtue of making the rápe accusation, Kainat is an outlaw in her own country.
The
film, which was selected for screening in the 2013 Sundance Film
Festival, retells the story of the young girl’s attack while walking
home from school down a narrow village street by a shop where Kainat
says the owner, Shaban Saikh, and three other men including a father and
son held her down and sexuálly assaulted her.
The
village declared her "kari", or a black vírgin, and ordered her family
to carry out an honor killing to end the shame a rápe victim brings to a
family, according to Pakistani culture.
The rápists beat her father and one of her brothers. Her older brother went missing for three months and was found murdered.
But
Kainat's parents refused to kill their daughter, instead deciding to
take up her cause in a legal system which places the burden of proof on
the victim.
"They
told me I am not a real man," Kainat’s brother, Sabir tells the
film-makers, Habiba Nosheen and Hilke Schellmann, " that you failed to
follow your tradition, you failed to kill your sister."
Meanwhile,
threats of death and further violence have forced the Soomros from the
house they owned in Dadu to the city of Karachi, where all 18 family
members now live in a two-bedroom apartment.
The
men are unable to find work, so the women embroider fabrics to pay rent
and they often have to resort to asking charities for food.
Her
father says the family has "lost everything" pursuing the case in which
neither the police or government authorities will take any
responsibility.
When
Kainat attends court she undergoes a barrage of "nasty" questions, up
to 300 at a time, including "what part of your clothing did you remove?"
or "who ráped you first?".
The
presiding judge is affronted that Kainat has brought the charges, and
rules against her in part because she has accused a father and son of a
gang rápe.
"In
his view," the film’s narrator says, "he said that would never happen
in Pakistan" and describes Kainat’s accusations "as a product of her own
fantasy".
The
men are acquitted, and, in an interview with the film makers, appear
bewildered at why their accuser didn't just stay at home "and keep
quiet".
They
see their acquittal as proof Kainat "does not have good character. If
she was a decent woman, she would have sat at home, silent."
The
film portrays Kainat's persistence in her quest for justice, hiring an
attorney, making television appearances, appealing court decisions and
her unwillingness to back down in the face of continued adversity as
heroic.
Even as Kainat and her family say they will fight on, perhaps for years, her lawyer suggests the future will be difficult.
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