The most dangerous time for a woman – Rafia Zakaria

Condominium complexes like the one in Commons at Vintage park in Spring, a downtown suburb of Houston, Texas, are found throughout the United States. The quiet three-story buildings are surrounded by well-tended trees and bushes. The complex is full of parking spaces reserved for those who live here and to ensure an additional level of security the entire complex is fenced. Only residents or those in possession of the gate code can enter.

But all this was not enough to protect Sadia Manzoor, a Pakistani-American woman who was a teacher. On the morning of May 19, she was preparing herself every day to go to work. In her apartment there were also her mother, Inayat Bibi, and her 4-year-old daughter, Khadija. All three would be dead within minutes. That morning Sadia’s husband, from whom the woman had separated, also a Pakistani-American, broke into the apartment and opened fire, killing his ex-wife, daughter and ex-mother-in-law. Only then did he turn the weapon against himself.

The most dangerous moment
After the murder, it turned out that Sadia had filed for divorce because her ex-husband was violent towards her and her daughter. The divorce had ended and Sadia was trying to rebuild a life with her mother and daughter. Having worked so hard to drag herself out of an abusive relationship, Sadia did not imagine that the most dangerous time for a woman who is a victim of violence is when she leaves the man who abuses her.

According to the US Department of Justice, the moment a couple separates is also the deadliest for a woman. Some estimates show that an abused woman is 500 times more at risk of violence. Many abused women are injured or killed during this time when the abuser begins to realize that he has lost control over them. In Sadia’s case, apparently, her ex-husband decided that if she could no longer have her family, then there would be no family.

Then there is the other story, that of two sisters of Pakistani origin who live in Spain. One day after the massacre of Sadia Manzoor, her mother and her daughter, the two sisters Aneesa and Arooj Abbas were killed in cold blood in the Pakistani region of Gujarat. According to reports about the case, a couple of years ago the sisters were forced to marry cousins ​​in Pakistan and were trying to get a divorce. When the in-laws and their own family members learned of their intentions, the sisters were tricked into returning to Pakistan, where they suffered torture and violence before being killed. Among the six men arrested for the murder are two brothers and an uncle of the victims.

They are heartbreaking and tragic deaths. Both stories involve women of Pakistani origin who lived in the diaspora. Both involve men who, when they realized they could not exercise total control over their victims, decided to kill them. Sadia Manzoor’s killer killed himself, so the drama he caused will never receive justice. The suspected murderers of the Abbas sisters have been arrested, but it is not a given that they will indeed be punished. When women are killed by family members, it is common practice to arrest suspects when media attention is very high, and release them on bail once the spotlight on the case goes out.

The crisis of masculinity
These stories also show that living in countries like the United States or Spain or any other Western country brings up the male identity crisis that Pakistani men face when migrating to other countries. In Pakistan, there is total control over women. The normalization of violence against them is so widespread that nobody cares about it, even when they know some victims of mistreatment. Pakistanis, perennially nosy about everything else, are experts in looking the other way when it comes to abused women. One of the cruellest forms of looting that occurs in Pakistan’s patriarchal society is that women, who are supposed to show solidarity with others, also blame them with a lot of complacency.

In other countries, men do not have such an all-encompassing dominion over women. Pakistani men living in the diaspora in this or that western country suddenly discover that they can no longer exercise total control over the women in their family. Relational balances change when their wives discover that it is not difficult to obtain a divorce. In Texas, as in other American states, a divorce is guaranteed if only one of the two parties wants it. At least from a legal point of view, no one can force a woman to remain married to a man. Unlike in Pakistan, the husband’s consent is not required to obtain a divorce. Some men, like Sadia Manzoor’s killer, can’t conceive that they can no longer lead their families as they were used to.

It is important for all Pakistani women to learn from stories such as those of Sadia Manzoor and the Abbas sisters. The three women had tried to live a life free from violence, in which they could make their own choices. Their lives have been destroyed because of the male ego: the insatiable desire for control of their killers has turned into a desire to kill. The bloodlust of Sadia Manzoor’s killer did not spare even a four-year-old girl. According to the autopsy, the Abbas sisters were viciously tortured before being killed.

Women who come out of a relationship in which they have been abused must know how to defend themselves from the risk that awaits them. Sadia Manzoor perhaps had done so and for this reason she had chosen to move into a gated condominium. Unfortunately, this foresight was not enough to save her and her family. The lesson is clear: a delusional, raving man can turn into a killer very easily.

Even brothers and uncles can undergo these kinds of transformations, fueled by the creepy desire to exercise total control. Under a thin veneer of normality, all violent men are potential killers of women, supported and supported in their plans by complicit family members, misogynist laws and entire societies, who choose to turn away when men kill.

(Translation by Giusy Muzzopappa)