Claim: A picture shows a young woman at the Aurat March sporting a poster that, when translated from Urdu to English, says, “I am not honour, I am a sex worker.”
Fact: The text on the poster is doctored. The original picture is from Aurat March 2020, and the actual text, when translated to English, reads; “I am not honour, I am a human being.”
On 8 March 2024, a user on X (formerly Twitter) posted an image (archive) with the caption, “She said it herself at Aurat March #AuratMarch #MeToo #AuratMarch2024”.
The image shows a young woman at the Aurat March holding a poster with an Urdu text, which roughly translates to English as “I am not honour, I am a sex worker.” The term used instead of a sex worker is considered derogatory.
Fact or Fiction?
In the original image, the poster reads, “I am not honour, I am a human being”. The image with the doctored poster was previously shared in 2020 and investigated by Soch Fact Check at the time. The original image includes the watermark #AuratMarch2020, which Aurat March’s official account added to photos shared on their official pages to help identify when an image is edited.
The original poster In Urdu reads,
عزت نہیں انسان ہوں میں
Translation [“I am not honour, I am a human being.”]
However, in the doctored version of the image shared on social media after the march, the word ‘insan’ (human) was replaced with an Urdu slud “r*ndi”, meaning sex worker. It is also to be noted that in 2020, Aurat March Lahore added a watermark to the original pictures shared by the page so that people could know when they are doctored.
Virality
The doctored image was shared here and here on X.
It was also shared here and here on Facebook and here on Instagram.
This edited image was previously shared in 2020 and can be seen here.
Conclusion: The viral image of a woman sporting a poster at the Aurat March is doctored.
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Background image in cover photo: Aurat March Karachi
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