Somehow in my country, when people talk about rape, they deny the violence and view it as adultery.

It is impossible to imagine the pain felt by a person who has undergone such brutality. Rapists symbolise the animal instinct that resides within us: one that is selfish, unconscionable and unenlightened. In them we see psychologically sick people who have not been able to tame this instinct. They run on hate, selfishness and violence. With their willingness to push someone down and force themselves upon them, with their sadistic pleasure of hearing their victim cry and yell and scream for help, and with our society’s support of the rapist over the raped, how is it that we call ourselves educated and civilized?

But even in the most civilized of nations rape prevails.

According to Human Rights Watch, in the US the National Crime Victimization Survey states that at least 248,300 individuals were raped or sexually assaulted in 2007. Here in Pakistan, a rape victim does not only have to face the physical and psychological trauma that follows rape but also bear the blame, be disowned by her family, abused for dishonouring the family, and shunned by society in general. According to the Aurat Foundation, 1,000 women were raped in Pakistan in 2010, while an article in The Express Tribune from that same year talked about the fear and threat of rape when it reported that “70 per cent of the total number of female students have stopped attending schools, colleges and coaching centres across five districts this year following a shocking gang-rape incident in Khipro town, in which a student of class XI was allegedly drugged, criminally assaulted and filmed, [and after which the] video was shared online.”

Ironically, while rape is a rising human rights issue in Pakistan and around the world, people have regressed to a whole new level by using the term “rape” in jokes by glorifying the rapist and being insensitive to the victims of rape. How can jokes such as “What’s black and blue and hates sex? A rape victim,” and “What do nine out of 10 people enjoy? Gang rape,” be thought of as appropriate when the agony and inhumanity of this crime is no secret?

To top that, we have celebrities from renowned TV shows tweeting rape jokes. Rainn Wilson from the hit seriesThe Office tweeted, “I’m on @ConanOBrien tonight. I’m going to not ‘rape’ Andy, but consensually ‘take’ him, you know?” New York magazine’s “This Season’s Many Rape Jokes on TV” covers the jokes being cracked and laughed at in sitcoms (see video below):

Luckily, there are people left in this world who believe that rape is not something to be joked about but rather eliminated. A group of five gender studies students at SZABIST, in collaboration with KarachiTips, have started a campaign against rape jokes using Facebook and other social media in hopes of changing the mindset of people.Newsline spoke to Mohammad Abdullah, one of the founders of KarachiTips. “I have worked a lot with various NGOs, and we started KarachiTips with the intention of promoting the culture of Karachi. When this group of five approached us at KarachiTips with their idea, it was a topic of great interest for all of us. I myself once tweeted a rape joke and a friend of mine from Islamabad pointed out how it wasn’t all that funny. With this campaign we wish to change the mindset of people in hopes that they see the insensitivity that lies in a mere joke that includes the word ‘rape.’”

This initiative is laudable and it looks like it will go far. It has already made an impact with 1,000 “Likes” on its Facebook page in less than a week. People from all over the world are thanking the students for spreading awareness and others are confessing to their own insensitive use of the word “rape.”

Fizza Shahid, one of the students behind the campaign, says, “For our gender studies action project, my group (Sachal Mughal, Sheema Khawar, Yasal Munim and Munira Hirwani and I) had to pick an issue, and we chose to focus on rape culture because it is a taboo topic in the society in which we live. We decided to specifically focus on rape jokes for the sole reason that it is not funny to make humour out of one of the most violent crimes that exist in our society. By calling it ‘dark humour’ we think we’ve justified it enough, but it isn’t humour to begin with. We want to create awareness regarding the seriousness of the situation that surrounds the word ‘rape.’”

This campaign is a step towards a revolution: one against jokes that are a symbol of stupidity and ignorance.

Visit the page on Facebook set up by SZABIST students and KarachiTips here.