Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has once again come under fire after suggesting women’s clothes are to blame for the rising number of rape cases in the country.

Khan made these comments during a recent interview with Axios on HBO, with the excerpt in question having been widely shared and criticised by journalists and activists.

Official statistics show that at least 11 rape incidents are reported in Pakistan every day, with more than 22,000 cases reported to the police over the course of the last six years.

This is the interview

Earlier, PTI spokespersons argued the PM never attributed women’s dress to sexual violence but was speaking generally about pardah for both men and women

Here the PM leaves no room for any doubt (or spin)

A pity the outcry earlier had no impact on him pic.twitter.com/bHCBmFxvyv

— Reema Omer (@reema_omer) June 21, 2021

When asked by interviewer Jonathan Swan whether or not he believed women’s clothes to be a factor in rape cases, Khan replied:

If a woman is wearing very few clothes, it will have an impact on the men, unless they’re robots. I mean it is common sense.

Swan then went on to rephrase the question, asking Khan whether clothing was ‘really going to provoke acts of sexual violence.’

Khan responded:

It depends on which society you live in. […] If in a society people haven’t seen that sort of thing, it will have an impact [on them]. Growing up in a society like yours, maybe it won’t impact you. This cultural imperialism… Whatever is in our culture must be acceptable to everyone else.

Imran Khan’s words are not a slip of a tongue or an ‘opinion by an uncle in a drawing room’. It is a public, dangerous threat to the women of our country where they are informed that rape and assault is their own fault. And that their own PM stands with rapists.

— Kanwal Ahmed (@kanwalful) June 21, 2021

This isn’t the first time in recent months that Khan has made regressive comments about rape. In April, human rights groups branded Khan a ‘rape apologist’ after he advised women to cover themselves up so as not to tempt rapists.

During a televised interview at the time, Khan remarked:

In any society where vulgarity is prevalent, there are consequences.

In response to this, a group of Pakistan-based human rights organisations – including Women’s Action Forum and War Against Rape – penned a joint letter asking the PM to apologise.

According to the most recent survey from the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Pakistan ranks as the sixth most dangerous place on Earth for women.