Working women have always had issues like sexual harassment and even physical & mental abuse in work places. Whether its a media house, corporate or law firm, there are some men around the world that just can’t seem to respect women and their space.
Just recently, Minahil Khan, an employee who had worked with her LLB degree at a law firm for four years, just came out to social media with a story she had been hiding for years, fearing that it would damage her personal and social life altogether.
Minahil worked at a law firm thinking it would be a respectable profession, however, just like every other office, it too had animals just lurking for more. It was not long after her joining that she started receiving texts from her colleague, who happened to be the son of a High Court judge; messages that were not only harassing but filthy to every extent.
Trying to ignore and work to hold her degree respectfully, Minahil carried on ignoring and worked for four years but then left the office and ended her profession permanently. However, after leaving the office, getting married and later living a peaceful life, she recently received more messages from the same guy. But this time, she took the courage and shared the story with her husband.
To her surprise, her husband was the one who backed her to take stand or else he would go and take a piece of that guy his own way. And that is when Minahil took the courage to take to social media with her story and bring this disgusting man’s approach out to the PUBLIC!
Minahil Khan writes her story:
Four years ago at 22 I joined the legal profession. Many prepared me for what was to come. I was told not to wear too much makeup, keep my hair tied, keep my gaze stern and wear a dupatta at all times. I joined a law firm of national repute and I genuinely believed that my LLM degree and general privilege would shelter me from workplace harassment. Nevertheless, I kept my hair tyed, my face stern and my makeup minimal. I wanted to be known for my professionalism and in a city as small as Islamabad and a legal fraternity even smaller, I wanted my reputation to be clean and scandal-free. So when I was first sent messages by a senior colleague telling me how I look like a ‘gem’ and that I am beautiful I kept them to myself. More because the person sending those messages was the son of a High Court judge and I did not want my colleagues to consider me less professional and because I did not want my family to find out and tell me to discontinue working.
With time the messages became more frequent; between 11 PM to 3AM I would receive up to 20/30 text messages almost everyday, all those messages went unanswered and the next morning I would go to work and politely say salam to my colleague and pretend they never happened. When I did muster the courage to speak to my bosses, I was made to believe this is a right of passage and the messages will stop and I should concentrate on my work. Soon after I left the law-firm because I could not handle the misogyny, and I could not work in an environment where I felt unsafe at the hands of a 30 something with a wife and son. I forgot about those messages and continued working hard. So when a week ago I received a message at 1230 AM from the same person calling me a slut, I had the same instinct to keep quiet and forget about it lest it create problems for me in my marriage and my current workplace. I was so conditioned to believe that this is okay that I was willing to forget this personal insult. But when I told my husband (a man with more courage than I could ever dream of possessing), he made me realize that it is NOT okay. Regardless of who the person is and what his father does, he does not have a license to abuse me simply because his advances were ignored. Having spent four years in a misogynistic profession, I thought my husband would be mad at me but instead he gave me the courage to take this man down or he would do it himself regardless of the consequences. Which is why today I mustered the nerve to post this screenshot and the details of this man. His name is Salman Ijaz Chodhary. His father is now a retired High Court Judge. He has a wife and children. And he continues to harass me just because he feels he can. I don’t know if this post will serve any purpose but I really hope he reads it and I hope his family and friends read it too. Men reading this should know that just because a woman leaves her home she isn’t ‘asking’ for it.
Despite having family and friends that will always support me, I’m still scared that this public abashment might lead to him saying even worse things about me. Which is why I pray for a time when women will be able to go to courts, hospitals and offices without their appearances being commented on. And where they will have the courage that I didn’t possess four years ago to not brush instances of harassment under the carpet and consider them a right of passage and ignore them only because of fear of the perpetrator’s physical strength simply by virtue of his gender.
Its about time men realize that with the rise of social media, no one can play and run away or stay hidden under the table, but in fact be put out to public and talked about at every house – under every roof. Minahil made the right move and I hope to see that man, whether or not he belongs from to an elite family, brought under the law and to taught how to respect women.
