RIGHTS-PAKISTAN: Despite Sound and Fury, ‘Hudood’ Laws Still Stay

By Zofeen Ebrahim Reprint | | Print |

Zofeen Ebrahim

KARACHI, Pakistan, Sep 26 2003 (IPS) - The furore over Pakistan’s controversial ‘Hudood’ laws and the burden they force on women has been rising again, but activists and even human rights officials are not at all optimistic about their repeal in this mainly Muslim country.

The furore over Pakistan’s controversial ‘Hudood’ laws and the burden they force on women has been rising again, but activists and even human rights officials are not at all optimistic about their repeal in this mainly Muslim country.

”While the present government has taken action against religious groups, under U.S. pressure, it is unlikely to risk a backlash when it comes to securing the rights of women,” said Zohra Yusuf, a council member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

The laws, collectively called Hudood Ordinances, are Islamic decrees enforced together with the country’s secular legal system. They were introduced in 1979 during the regime of former president General Zia-ul Haq, cover a range of crimes and also apply to non-Muslims.

Criticisms of Hudood have been many and severe, and amongst the most controversial is the requirement under Hudood that a woman must have four male witnesses to prove rape, or face a charge of adultery herself.

”Where and how is a woman who gets raped able to find four male witnesses?” asked a vexed Sheema Kermani, founder and director of Tehrik-e-Niswan, a women’s organisation. ”Why should she be punished and the criminal go scot-free?”

Indeed, Yusuf is categorical in stating that the Hudood laws adversely affect the most marginalised sections of Pakistan’s society – women and minorities.

The furore over the Hudood laws intensified after a government commission recommended their repeal in August. The conclusions of the National Commission on the Status of Women, an independent statutory body, were met with demonstrations in their support this month organised by citizens’ groups, as well as vociferous opposition from some women parliamentarians.

This is not the first time that motions towards a repeal of the Hudood Ordinances have been made, but the history of those efforts does not encourage those seeking their overturn.

”In spite of innumerable cases that have clearly established the miscarriage of justice under these laws and their propensity for exploitation,” said Yusuf. ”In spite of campaigns by rights groups for over two decades, they continue to exist.”

Two recent cases starkly illustrate all that can go wrong with the Hudood laws. The most well-known among Hudood cases is that concerning a rape victim, Zafran Bibi, who last year was charged with adultery and sentenced to be stoned to death.

For the umpteenth time, women’s rights groups rallied round, the case quickly gained notoriety, and the outcry led to the Federal Shariah Court of Pakistan overturning the sentence and acquitting Bibi in June 2002.

The second concerned 30-year-old Mukhtaran Mai, who was ‘sentenced’ by a tribal council in southern Punjab to be gang-raped as ‘punishment’ for the alleged conduct of her 12-year-old brother. The boy had been falsely accused of having an ‘illicit’ relationship with a woman from another tribe.

Once again, rights groups did their best to prevent the carrying out of a hideous interpretation of justice and it was not until the incident was reported in the media that an official investigation into the case was ordered by Pakistan’s Supreme Court.. The guilty were sentenced to death by hanging, but are appealing their sentences.

Yet there is support for the spirit of the Hudood laws. According to Kanez Ayesha Munawwar, a member of Pakistan’s National Assembly who is against the repeal, ”These laws will make our society a moral one. I think (they) give the Pakistani woman protection. If these laws are implemented with all honesty, it will actually empower her.”

She added that the laws can be efficient but ”only if our legislative bodies, our police and judicial system are free from corruption”.

Similarly, Kulsoom Nizamani, a member of the Provincial Assembly of the province of Sindh, is also against the repeal. ”With the graph of violence against women going up at such an alarming rate, it is imperative that these laws stay,” she said.

Human rights activists, on the other hand, believe that half of all women imprisoned in Pakistan are falsely charged with the crime of adultery. There is also a section of legal opinion that questions the very basis of the Hudood laws.

”The ordinances, specially the ‘zina’ (adultery) ordinance, are bad laws promulgated without any public debate or through Parliament,” said Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid, retired Supreme Court judge and author of the 1997 Report of the Commission of Inquiry for Women which had then recommended the repeal of the Hudood laws.

”In their implementation, these are cruel tools in the hands of law-enforcing agencies and powerful vested interests against mostly the poorest of the poor sections of our society – mainly young girls and women,” said Justice Zahid.

Danish Zuberi, a lawyer and women’s rights activist, explained the impact of the Hudood laws. ”While acquittal rates for women charged under Hudood cases are estimated at over 30 percent, by the time a woman has been vindicated she will have spent a few years in prison,” he said. ”In most cases she will have been subjected to police abuse while in custody.”

Indeed, Justice Zahid recalled a former chief justice of Pakistan, Justice Afzal Zullah, being on record as having said that 95 percent of the women charged under ‘Zina’ – the ordinance that deals with adultery – are eventually acquitted.

The draconian laws have long been opposed by political parties, civil rights organisations and women’s groups, who have argued that rape and violence against women have soared since the Hudood ordinances were passed.

Successive governments in Pakistan have failed to have the laws repealed or changed in the face of stiff opposition from powerful conservative groups, who have traditionally been close allies of the military.

Anis Haroon, resident director of the Aurat Foundation, a civil society organisation committed to women’s empowerment, offered a tart summary: ”The question is: who will bell the cat?”