Honour, Shame and the Vocabulary of Sexual Violence

How the Urdu language reinforces rape culture 

In 2017, while writing my paper The Plight of a Rape Survivor: An analysis of different anthropological and legal aspects on the prevalence of rape, particularly in Southern Punjab, Pakistan, I argued that the Urdu vocabulary commonly used for rape reflects and reinforces patriarchal attitudes towards women and sexual violence. The paper was later quoted in a Supreme Court judgment on rape jurisprudence, although not specifically for its discussion on language. Yet the issue of language remains central to understanding how societies respond to rape. 

Every society reveals its deepest prejudices through language. The words we choose shape public attitudes, legal thinking, and social behaviour. In Pakistan, some of the most commonly used Urdu expressions for rape expose how deeply patriarchal assumptions remain embedded in our culture. 

Terms such as “Asmat Dari,” “izzat lootna,” “asmat lootna,” and “be-aabroo karna” are frequently used in newspapers, television reports, police conversations, and everyday speech. These expressions are often considered normal, even respectable. But they carry meanings that distort the reality of sexual violence. 

“Asmat Dari” literally means “taking away chastity” or “taking away honour.” “Izzat lootna” translates to “looting honour.” “Be-aabroo karna” means “dishonouring someone.” None of these expressions focus on violence, coercion, consent, or bodily autonomy. Instead, they frame rape as a moral loss suffered by the woman. 

That is the core problem. 

Rape is not the theft of honour. 

Rape is violence. 

Rape is abuse of power. 

Rape is the violation of bodily autonomy. 

Pakistan urgently needs a new moral vocabulary, one which is centred not on chastity or shame, but on consent, dignity, equality, and justice. Until that shift happens, we will continue condemning rape in law while silently reproducing the same violence through language itself.

But the language we use shifts attention away from the criminal act and towards the woman’s supposed loss of purity. The survivor becomes the centre of shame, while the rapist becomes secondary. This linguistic framing has devastating consequences because it shapes how society treats survivors. 

When rape is linked to honour, families often try to silence victims to avoid social stigma. Communities begin judging the survivor instead of condemning the perpetrator. Questions about a woman’s clothing, lifestyle, relationships, and virginity become more important than the violence committed against her. 

This is why rape survivors in Pakistan frequently fear reporting crimes. They are not only afraid of the trauma of the assault itself; they are afraid of becoming symbols of shame for their families. 

No man’s honour is said to disappear after violence is committed against him. No family is believed to lose dignity if a son is assaulted, robbed, or murdered. Yet women continue to carry the symbolic burden of family reputation. 

This burden becomes particularly dangerous in patriarchal and tribal societies where women’s bodies are treated as extensions of male pride. Men fight other men, but women often pay the price. Sexual violence is sometimes used as a weapon of revenge because society has accepted the idea that violating a woman humiliates the men connected to her. 

That logic only survives because honour has been attached to female sexuality. If we genuinely want to combat rape culture, this mindset must be dismantled. A woman is not the carrier of family honour. 

Her dignity does not depend on virginity. 

And rape does not reduce her worth. 

The shame belongs entirely to the perpetrator. 

Changing laws alone will never be enough if language continues reproducing the same patriarchal assumptions. Pakistan has introduced legal reforms regarding rape, DNA evidence, and victim protection. Yet victim blaming remains widespread because institutions are shaped by the same social attitudes present in everyday language. 

Police officers, judges, journalists, teachers, clerics, and relatives are all influenced by the vocabulary society normalizes. When rape is repeatedly described as “dishonour,” institutions begin treating survivors as morally compromised rather than as victims of violence. 

This is why language reform matters. 

Media outlets, courts, textbooks, and public discourse should stop using expressions like “Asmat Dari,” “izzat lootna,” “asmat lootna,” and “be-aabroo karna.” These phrases reinforce the idea that sexual violence damages female honour rather than exposing male criminality.

Instead, we should use language that clearly identifies rape as sexual violence, sexual assault, coercion, or bodily violation. The focus must shift from the survivor’s supposed purity to the perpetrator’s actions. 

Such a shift would have practical consequences. 

It would weaken the obsession with virginity. 

It would reduce victim blaming. 

It would discourage families from hiding crimes to “protect honour.” 

And it would challenge the dangerous idea that women exist as vessels carrying male prestige. 

Some may dismiss this debate as symbolic or unnecessary. But history shows that language shapes social consciousness. Oppressive systems survive because they normalize themselves through ordinary words. 

The same society that now rejects openly racist or colonial vocabulary once considered such language acceptable. Change began when people recognized that words are not neutral; they carry assumptions about power and human worth. 

The same realization is necessary regarding gender violence. 

A society that constantly describes rape as stolen honour will continue producing shame-filled survivors and entitled perpetrators. 

We must also confront the unequal moral expectations placed upon women in patriarchal cultures. Men are associated with authority, mobility, and freedom, while women are associated with modesty, sacrifice, and sexual control. This imbalance turns women into custodians of collective morality. 

As a result, women become responsible not only for their own conduct but for the social respectability of entire families. Their clothing, mobility, friendships, and choices are monitored because patriarchal societies have tied honour to female bodies. 

This system harms everyone. 

It harms women through fear and restriction. 

It harms men by teaching them that masculinity is linked to controlling women. 

And it harms justice because crimes become filtered through ideas of shame and honour rather than human rights and bodily autonomy. A rape survivor should never have to prove she remained “honourable.” Her humanity is enough. 

The real dishonour lies elsewhere: in the man who commits violence, in institutions that fail survivors, and in societies that continue measuring women through the language of purity. 

Pakistan urgently needs a new moral vocabulary, one which is centred not on chastity or shame, but on consent, dignity, equality, and justice. 

Until that shift happens, we will continue condemning rape in law while silently reproducing the same violence through language itself.