The politics of rape in Pakistan

Four years after Muktaran Mai (check out her blog) was gang-raped with the sanction of a tribal council (a punishment for her 13-year-old brother’s alleged affair with another man’s sister), Pakistan has just revised its “rape law.” Unfortunately, the new law changes little. It does, however, reveal much about the state of Pakistan.

The bill has been seen as a barometer for Musharaf’s commitment to a moderate Muslim state. But threats of a government walkout and nationwide protests by religious parties forced the government to walk back the original bill a good deal. 

The old law (here’s the actual legislation – frightening) requires four Muslim male witnesses to verify actual penetration for a conviction in a rape case. Without four witnesses, the victim could be prosecuted for adultery, which carries a death penalty by public stoning. The new law moves rape and adultery out of the Islamic courts and into civil ones. But the judge in civil court still has the discretion to block the case from going to trial.

Keep reading after the JUMP. 

The leader of the Islamic parties (MMA alliance), a Mr. Maulana Fazlur Rahman, issued warnings to parliament that the bill would “turn Pakistan into a free-sex zone.” Others called the legislation “a harbinger of lewdness and indecency in the country.” For these pious parliamentarians, protecting against rape as a ploy to cover up adultery or libel is more important than rape as a crime. (Not that this perversity is limited to just the religious parties. In an interview with the Washington Post in 2005, Musharraf alleged that gang-rape had become a “money-making” concern in Pakistan because victims get compensation.) But just in case you think this modest step toward protecting women shows progress in Islamabad, the MMA government in Peshawar voted to create a Taliban-style religious police force to enforce virtue and suppress vice.

Some of the provisions in the bill, like the prohibition against music on buses and women on billboards are already laws in the northwest frontier country. Other clauses, like the enforcement of Islamic dress, were deemed unconstitutional by the courts. The bill is mainly a political gimmick but it institutionalizes a parallel police force led by clerics – enough cause for concern in an area where the Taliban is already back to burning down schools for girls. Interestingly enough, the bill specifically exempts the military from the eyes of the mullahs. Clearly the mullahs know on which side their bread is buttered.