A ‘viral' tragedy exposing society's failings in love, accountability, and gender

Express Tribune

05-02-2025

"You talk too much"—I've dreamt of saying this to so many men in my life, quite literally. But I, a brown girl in a repressed household, have no liberty to do so. How can I tell a man to shut up?
How can I even dare to think that?
But a woman with an American passport said it, and I won't lie—I enjoyed every second of it. After all, how often do we see a Pakistani man getting a shut-up call?
Onijah Andrew Robinson, a 33-year-old woman, came to Pakistan to live with her partner, Nidal Ahmed Memon, an 18-year-old boy from Karachi. Reportedly, they were already married.
Now, here's where everything goes wrong—not really a surprise, because when does a woman marry a Pakistani man and have everything go right for her?
The guy's mother blatantly rejected her, apparently because she's not conventionally pretty—she's not fair, doesn't have blue eyes, and lacks everything a typical Pakistani mother of a son (who's just a mama's boy, probably spending all his time online playing games or chatting with foreign women in hopes of an easy ticket abroad) would approve of.
So, this woman is left stranded.
She's abandoned and camping in front of the man's house, and suddenly, everyone goes crazy—she's now a viral sensation. But becoming a viral sensation in Pakistan isn't that hard. All you have to do is be really rich, privileged, fair-skinned, or from a white country. So even though she's stranded, she still gets a lot of attention.
Suddenly, a third-world country with every problem known to mankind forgets everything and fixates on how this woman will navigate her way forward.
She becomes the subject of memes, and from her looks to her history, everything is public. She's the topic of every dinner table discussion—everyone is sharing their two cents about her while their own lives are in shambles.
However, these discussions remain shallow, and no one addresses a deeply rooted cultural problem: men taking the easy way out by making a complete fool of a woman—and never being held accountable.
In later news reports, it was revealed that Onijah has Bipolar Disorder, which can make people act impulsively. I mean, who in their right mind falls in love online, marries a man half their age, and then travels across continents—only to act obsessively in love and be treated like a spectacle?
She's being reduced to a viral hot topic, a joke, a piece of meat for shallow conversations.
And let's not forget Memon—the reason she's here and the reason she's become one massive joke—is nowhere to be seen.
This guy has disappeared off the face of the earth, yet no one is asking the real question: What was an 18-year-old boy doing online, leading a woman on, making her believe in a future, and pushing her to the point where she felt confident enough to travel all this way—only for it to end in chaos?
Secondly, the way her looks are being discussed publicly is yet another disgrace this society fails to recognise. It's 2025, and we're still making body-shaming and skin-shaming jokes.
This only proves that no matter what a woman does, she will always be reduced to her appearance—because, after all, what is a girl if not pretty?
This entire fiasco, which has been going on for a week now, leaves us with many questions. We need to take a step back and rethink the institution of marriage in this country. Last I checked, marriage was supposed to be about companionship—not just about looks or personal gain.
We also need to question where our youth, especially young men, are headed.
The South Asian familial system is heavily biased towards giving sons the best of both worlds while completely ignoring daughters. But despite this privilege, men aren't out there conquering the world—they're sitting behind screens, looking for an easy way out through women.
So what's all the tough persona for? Just come clean.
Last but not least, we as a nation need to learn that not everything is a joke. This is a matter of serious concern—how a mentally ill woman was led on by an 18-year-old boy, with no regard for her emotional state. Once she arrived here, the family felt it was okay to abandon her on the streets.
A country that is already so unsafe for women—this isn't just me 'claiming' it; statistics have shown this year after year—continues to fail its women, and now we've made foreign women experience it too.
So, ease up on the memes and focus on raising your sons better.