Re: Woman To Be Caned For Being Raped By 8 Men
The burden of proof was on victim & if she could not produce 4 male witness she ended up in jail. There are countless examples of that.
OpenTrial - Jailing the Raped in Pakistan
Criminalising the raped
There was also great risk attached to alleging rape under the Hudood Ordinance, as rape victims had to produce four male eye-witnesses of the act of penetration. This, of course, was pretty much impossible, as for four men to witness the act, they would have had to have been not only cowardly bystanders or complicit in the rape, but voyeurs too. They would certainly not be willing witnesses and failure to produce the necessary witnesses risked the victim being charged with adultery - for which the maximum punishment was stoning to death for married people and 100 lashes for the unwed - or fornication and alleging a false crime, for which the penalties were stoning, lashings or prison.
The situation often did not improve much when the rape victim was released from jail, as the unapprehended rapist/s could rape the victim again with impunity, the legal costs were probably crippling, and such great shame is attached to being raped, that even the victim’s own family may be anything but supportive, employment and housing may be impossible to obtain and cruel gossip incessant.
Fewer rape victims falsely accused seen as progress
In 2006, Pakistan’s National Assembly passed the Protection of Women Act (PWA), which, while not repealing the Hudood Ordinances, restored the offence of rape to the Penal Code, thus separating zina (extra-marital sex under Shari’a law,) from zina-bil-jabr (rape under secular law) and abolished the need for four male witnesses. The effect has been to significantly reduce false accusations against rape victims and the number of women being imprisoned for alleged zina. Additionally, the PWA repealed the punishment of whipping; but inhumane sentences such as amputation and death by stoning remain on the statute books.