WOMEN’S BILL FIASCO
Dawn
September 13, 2006
Editorial
FAR from having the women’s rights bill passed and adding a feather
to its cap, the government seems to have created an utter mess as
much for itself as for the original and basically sound idea of
amendments to the Hudood ordinances. That the Hudood laws would not
be repealed but would be amended was itself a climbdown from the
hopes aroused by the repeated declarations by President Pervez
Musharraf that one of the aims of his government was to improve the
lot of women and minorities and other disadvantaged groups by doing
away with discriminatory laws. Later, it became obvious that the
government did not have the courage to stare the still-strong Zia
lobby in the face and make the necessary changes in the Hudood laws
if a repeal was not possible. Now the events of the last few days,
the deferment of the bill twice in five days, and Maulana Fazlur
Rehman’s ego-boosting heli-lift testify as much to the clerics’ power
as to the ruling party’s political pussyfooting.
One might now be tempted to ask whose brilliant idea it was to
synchronise the passage of the women’s rights bill with the
president’s visit to the US. In the first place, it is doubtful that
a parliamentary approval of the bill would have really made a
difference to the outcome of the president’s American trip. At best
the president could perhaps have an easy time with the American
media, the rights groups and the plethora of boisterous and volatile
Pakistani associations in the US. In fact, possibilities are that the
president will be grilled much more on the North Waziristan situation
than on the proposed changes in a law that few even on Capitol Hill
or among the US media have any idea about. Whether the law in its
final form will really conform to the original aim behind the women’s
rights bill remains to be seen, but the plain fact is that the
government has shown an appalling lack of political sagacity and its
vacillation in tackling the forces of obscurantism which claim for
themselves the sole right to interpret Islam in the 21st century.
o o o
PAKISTAN RAPE REFORM FAILS AFTER MUSHARRAF CAVES IN
By Jerome Taylor
The Independent
12 September 2006
In a setback for women’s rights in Pakistan, the ruling party in
Islamabad has caved in to religious conservatives by dropping its
plans to reform rape laws.
Statutes known as the Hudood ordinances, based on sharia law,
currently operate in Pakistan. They require a female rape victim to
produce four male witnesses to corroborate her account, or she risks
facing a new charge of adultery.
The ruling party in Islamabad, made up of a coalition of groups
allied to President Pervez Musharraf, had hoped the new Protection of
Women Bill would place the crime of rape within the country’s secular
penal code, which works in tandem with sharia.
But the government said rape would remain a crime punished by Islamic
law yesterday after conservatives in an opposition group, Muttahida
Majlis-I-Amal (MMA), threatened to walk out of parliament in protest
if the government pushed ahead with reforms.
"If there are four witnesses it will be tried under [Islamic law], if
there are not, it will be tried under the penal code," said the law
minister, Mohammad Wasi Zafar. "In the case of both adultery and
rape, the judge will decide how to try the case." A new amended bill
will now be presented to parliament on Wednesday.
The news is a significant victory for the MMA, which have vehemently
opposed any attempts to lessen the influence of sharia.
The Hudood ordinances were enshrined in Pakistani law in 1979 by
General Zia ul-Haq in an attempt to appease the country’s powerful
religious elite following his military coup. They have been routinely
criticised by local and international rights groups. Previous
governments under Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif have tried to
repeal the laws but failed.
General Musharraf had told rights groups he was willing to back plans
for rape to be tried in the secular courts as part of his much
trumpeted “enlightened moderation” ideology. The timing of the
amended bill will be embarrassing for the President, who is touring
Europe and the United States. Pakistan’s Western allies have
pressured General Musharraf to improve the rights situation in his
country, particularly for women.
The failure of the new bill will be also be a bitter disappointment
to women’s groups in Pakistan, whichhave campaigned against the
Hudood ordinances. Most women refuse to report a rape for fear they
will be treated as a criminal. Under current laws, a victim risks
courting punishment if she reports a rape allegation as the Hudood
ordinances criminalise all extra-marital sex. A woman who fails to
prove that she was raped could then be charged with adultery under
the same legislation.
According to a 2002 report by the Human Rights Commission of
Pakistan, a woman is raped every two hours and gang raped every eight
hours. However, because of social taboos, discriminatory laws and
victimisation of victims by police, campaigners say that the scale of
rape is almost certainly higher.
Despite the dangers, Pakistani women had begun to fight back. In
2002, a woman named Mukhtar Mai forced the government drastically to
reassess women’s rights in Pakistan after she dared to speak out
publicly. She had been gang-raped by a number of men on the orders of
a village council.
The Protection of Women Bill was, until yesterday, part of the
government’s attempts to reform Pakistan’s laws following her rape.
In a setback for women’s rights in Pakistan, the ruling party in
Islamabad has caved in to religious conservatives by dropping its
plans to reform rape laws.
Statutes known as the Hudood ordinances, based on sharia law,
currently operate in Pakistan. They require a female rape victim to
produce four male witnesses to corroborate her account, or she risks
facing a new charge of adultery.
The ruling party in Islamabad, made up of a coalition of groups
allied to President Pervez Musharraf, had hoped the new Protection of
Women Bill would place the crime of rape within the country’s secular
penal code, which works in tandem with sharia.
But the government said rape would remain a crime punished by Islamic
law yesterday after conservatives in an opposition group, Muttahida
Majlis-I-Amal (MMA), threatened to walk out of parliament in protest
if the government pushed ahead with reforms.
"If there are four witnesses it will be tried under [Islamic law], if
there are not, it will be tried under the penal code," said the law
minister, Mohammad Wasi Zafar. "In the case of both adultery and
rape, the judge will decide how to try the case." A new amended bill
will now be presented to parliament on Wednesday.
The news is a significant victory for the MMA, which have vehemently
opposed any attempts to lessen the influence of sharia.
The Hudood ordinances were enshrined in Pakistani law in 1979 by
General Zia ul-Haq in an attempt to appease the country’s powerful
religious elite following his military coup. They have been routinely
criticised by local and international rights groups. Previous
governments under Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif have tried to
repeal the laws but failed.
General Musharraf had told rights groups he was willing to back plans
for rape to be tried in the secular courts as part of his much
trumpeted “enlightened moderation” ideology. The timing of the
amended bill will be embarrassing for the President, who is touring
Europe and the United States. Pakistan’s Western allies have
pressured General Musharraf to improve the rights situation in his
country, particularly for women.
The failure of the new bill will be also be a bitter disappointment
to women’s groups in Pakistan, whichhave campaigned against the
Hudood ordinances. Most women refuse to report a rape for fear they
will be treated as a criminal. Under current laws, a victim risks
courting punishment if she reports a rape allegation as the Hudood
ordinances criminalise all extra-marital sex. A woman who fails to
prove that she was raped could then be charged with adultery under
the same legislation.
According to a 2002 report by the Human Rights Commission of
Pakistan, a woman is raped every two hours and gang raped every eight
hours. However, because of social taboos, discriminatory laws and
victimisation of victims by police, campaigners say that the scale of
rape is almost certainly higher.
Despite the dangers, Pakistani women had begun to fight back. In
2002, a woman named Mukhtar Mai forced the government drastically to
reassess women’s rights in Pakistan after she dared to speak out
publicly. She had been gang-raped by a number of men on the orders of
a village council.
The Protection of Women Bill was, until yesterday, part of the
government’s attempts to reform Pakistan’s laws following her rape.
o o o
PAKISTAN MAKES COMPROMISE ON RAPE LAW
by Sadaqat Jan
The Associated Press
Washington Post
September 11, 2006
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s government agreed to a compromise
deal with hardline Islamic lawmakers Monday over proposed changes to
a law that has long made punishing rapists almost impossible in the
country.
The widely criticized Hudood Ordinance law, based on Islamic tenets,
requires a woman who claims she’s been raped to produce four
witnesses. Religious political parties had fiercely criticized an
amendment bill that would have dropped the requirement as un-Islamic.
Women supporters of a Pakistani Islamic alliance leave after a
protest rally in front of Parliament House against the Women’s
Protection Bill presented by government in the National Assembly,
Monday, Sept. 11, 2006 in Islamabad, Pakistan. Pakistan’s government
is
Women supporters of a Pakistani Islamic alliance leave after a
protest rally in front of Parliament House against the Women’s
Protection Bill presented by government in the National Assembly,
Monday, Sept. 11, 2006 in Islamabad, Pakistan. Pakistan’s government
is “very determined” to get a bill passed to protect rape victims,
despite Islamic hard-liners’ objections to the change, a government
spokeswoman. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed) (Anjum Naveed - AP)
Senator S.M. Zafar, a prominent ruling-party lawmaker, said Monday
the government had agreed to compromise by letting rape victims
choose between prosecuting suspects under the four-witness rule or
under Pakistan’s civil penal code.
Rape would remain punishable by death.
"It’s a compromise which doesn’t make difference in the substance (of
the law), but provides two different procedures for prosecuting a
rape case," he said.
Pakistan’s law minister, Wasi Zafar, who is not related to the
senator, said, "If a woman has four witnesses she can file a case
under the Hudood law, or if she does not have witnesses she file a
case under the penal code."
But opposition lawmaker Hafiz Hussain Ahmed called it victory for
Pakistan’s coalition of six hard-line religious parties.
"Now they have acknowledged that the amendment was in conflict with
the Quran," Ahmed said.
He said the government would give lawmakers a new draft of the
proposed amendment bill on Tuesday.
The government’s ruling Muslim League party has a parliamentary
majority and could easily pass the bill. It had originally been
scheduled for legislative debate on Monday but was postponed until
Wednesday after a panel of Islamic clerics, asked by the government,
suggested the adjustments.
Human rights groups have demanded that the Hudood Ordinance be
entirely repealed. They say the four-witness requirement makes
punishment almost impossible because such attacks are rarely public.
A woman who claims she was raped but fails to prove her case can be
convicted of adultery, punishable by death.
The ordinance was approved by a former military dictator in 1979 in
an attempt to make Pakistani laws more Islamic.
Last month, the government presented the amendment bill to drop the
four-witness requirement, but more than 60 hardline lawmakers
threatened to vacate their legislative seats in protest. That could
have forced a by-election and a major political crisis for President
Gen. Pervez Musharraf.