Ainy Jaffri had some sage advice for women everywhere during her appearance on a podcast for FHM Pakistan — that abuse is unacceptable and it isn’t a woman’s job to “fix” her significant other.
During the interview, Jaffri said, “[a] husband, boyfriend, fiancé, any man your parents introduce you to… any form of torture is unacceptable [at his hands]”. She added that if a woman’s partner hit her the relationship was “over and done” with.
“He will never change. How do I explain this,” Jaffri pleaded, palms pressed together and raised to her forehead in exasperation.
She emphasised repeatedly that an abusive partner would “never change”, and would instead perpetrate more violence against the victim. She added that if he “won’t hit you later, that’s good for him to have changed but he is not your problem”.
The Balu Mahi actor maintained that husbands were not for women to “fix”. “He is not your child that you need to fix him. It is your right that you marry a man who is already inherently a good person,” she said.
Jaffri continued that women do not need to be a “mother” to their partner or believe that they will “fix” him, adding that that was the man’s “mother’s job — not yours”.
“You will become his mother, and your own children’s mother and raise all of them together,” she warned.
Jaffri’s words are extremely important, especially as a 2020 report by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan showed that over 90 per cent of Pakistani women have faced domestic violence in their lifetime. It is important that public figures with a platform not only continue to raise their voices against domestic violence but also help their followers understand their rights.
