Pakistan, Sept. 14 -- In the quiet hours after the world has turned away, a young girl sits alone with the weight of what was done to her and asks, first of all, how she is to live. The body that once belonged only to her now carries a memory she did not choose. She wonders whether she may still walk in daylight without feeling every gaze as an accusation, whether she may still trust a neighbour's greeting or a relative's hand. She asks if the life she had planned-school, work, friendship, perhaps love-remains open to her, or whether she must learn to inhabit a narrower, shadowed existence. The question is not abstract; it is the daily labour of breathing after violation.

She turns next to her family. Will they gather around her as a shi...