Background on Hudood Ordinances
After General Zia ul-Haq came to power in 1977 through a military coup in Pakistan, he imposed and suspended all fundamental rights guaranteed in the 1973 Constitution, including the right to be free of discrimination on the basis of sex. He then introduced a series of laws that codified women’s status as subordinate in law, including the Hudood Ordinances and the Qanun-e-Shahadat Order (Law of Evidence Order), which relegated women to inferior legal status and, in some circumstances, rendered their testimony to half the weight of a man’s. Zia also proposed Islamic penal laws governing compensation and retribution in crimes involving bodily injury, including “honor” killings.
As a result of these changes, rape was no longer covered by the standard penal code, but by the Offence of Zina Ordinance, a subcategory of the Enforcement of Hudood Ordinance of 1979. Prohibited sexual activities, including rape (zina bil jabr), became religious offenses, subject to different evidentiary standards and punishment and the appellate jurisdiction of Islamic higher courts.
Pakistan’s previous rape laws, repealed by the Zina Ordinance, had defined rape as compulsory sexual intercourse. Statutory rape, previously defined as sex with or without the consent of a girl under the age of 14, was no longer a crime, meaning that girls could be charged for engaging in illicit sex if they had reached puberty. Marital rape, too, was no longer considered a crime.
In addition, for the first time in Pakistan’s history, fornication (non-marital sex) became illegal. Both it and adultery became non-compoundable, non-bailable, and punishable at maximum by death. Since the crime of statutory rape was also eliminated, minor girls may also be charged with engaging in illicit sex if they have reached puberty.
Currently, the only guaranteed way to obtain a rape conviction is if the accused confesses or there are four adult male witnesses to the act of penetration. Otherwise, the courts have no consistent standards of proof for rape. As a result, courts sometimes view a woman’s allegations of rape as an admission of illegal sex, making sexual assault victims susceptible to prosecution themselves.
In the 1980s, the government prosecuted hundreds of women for adultery or fornication unless they provided extraordinary conclusive proof that their “participation” in impermissible intercourse was forced; the accused rapist, on the other hand, was usually acquitted of all charges. Such cases have been less frequent in recent years, although the risk remains.
Now tell me how good is Hudood Ordinance. I haven’t even touched the subject where it involves the non muslims.
