Censors ban TV show over rape scenes that ‘tarnish’ Pakistan where sexual violence is endemic

Pakistani censors have banned a TV drama over scenes reminiscent of a notorious gang rape case, saying the series would “tarnish” the nation’s image by depicting it as an “unsafe place for women”.

Regulators said the show Hadsa would be pulled from the airwaves due to its parallels to the real-life case of a French-Pakistani mother who was raped in front of her small children after her car ran out of fuel near the eastern city of Lahore.

“Portrayal of such [a] heinous act will not only trigger the trauma of that unfortunate victim but would also tarnish [the] country’s image,” said the order from the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) released on Wednesday evening.

Sexual violence is endemic in deeply patriarchal Pakistan, where women are often treated as second-class citizens and the rape conviction rate is reported to be as low as 0.3 per cent.

Pakistan police detain suspect in rape of mother on a highway

The Lahore motorway rape case sparked nationwide protests after local police chided the victim for travelling at night without a male escort.

Then-police chief Umar Sheikh had repeatedly berated the woman – a resident of France – saying she probably “mistook that Pakistani society is just as safe” as her home country.

But PEMRA suggested on Wednesday that Hadsa – which began airing last week – would cause overseas viewers to wrongly “perceive Pakistan as [an] unsafe place for women”, adding that it did not portray a “true picture of Pakistani society”.

Episodes four and five of Hadsa show a woman and her son being kidnapped and assaulted by a gang when their car breaks down, later revealing the woman was raped.

Before the series was censored, actress Hadiqa Kiani, who plays the woman, said it was not based on real-life events.

“Unfortunately, the horrific act of rape and violence happens far too often in our society,” she wrote on the social media site X.

“Hadsa is not based on any one person’s story, it is based off of a sickly common part of our reality.”

In the wake of the Lahore incident, backlash over victim-blaming and abysmal conviction rates spurred legal reforms, including the establishment of special courts and chemical castration of serial rapists.

Two men were sentenced to death in 2021 for taking part in the rape, but have yet to be executed.