Daily Times

Pakistan has always been on the ‘hit-list’ of western countries when it comes to being labelled, whether it is for terrorism, corruption or for having discriminatory laws against its female population. Not that I disagree with them totally but I do feel that in order to criticise someone else, one needs to clean their own back yard first.

General Zia made quite a stir with the controversial Hudood Ordinance as it is widely and most popularly known. The promulgation of the said law, in 1979, unleashed a volley of cases registered under zina (adultery) and zina-bil-jabr (rape). The law, which was put in place in a severely misguided attempt to enforce Quranic Laws or shariah in Pakistan, led to myriad sufferings for women. The strict criteria, known as tazkiyah-tus-shahood, prescribed by the Quran for a conviction on a charge of zina or fornication or adultery, which is consensual sex, is of four adult, pious, truthful Muslims, who have abstained from all major sins, who actually witness the act of penetration. It is apparent even to a layman that fulfilling such criteria is virtually impossible. What happened was a severe misuse and abuse of the law. The law was indiscriminately applied to cases of rape or zina-bil-jabr as well as to zina. The women who were raped and were brave enough to step forward were often convicted for having consensual sex as there were no witnesses to the offence. Having said that, it should also be pointed out that convictions for zina-bil-jabr also took place on the sole testimony of the victims.

In 1979, the UN General Assembly adopted an international bill of rights for women — this is known as The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Pakistan acceded to this bill on March 12, 1996, subject to a reservation regarding the jurisdiction of the international court.

The UK had ratified the bill on April 7, 1986. The case of Layla Ibrahim is doing the rounds in the UK. Layla Ibrahim, born to a white, English mother and Libyan father, was 21 years old when she was sexually assaulted in January 2009, in Carlisle, located in the county of Cumbria. She received multiple injuries that were documented by the police. The case became high profile and was covered extensively by the media. Initially sympathetic to Layla, the police changed course and accused Layla of fabricating her story and of inflicting injuries on herself. The doctor who examined Layla was a specialist in sexual assault medical examinations and she corroborated Layla’s story, confirming the sexual assault. Despite the fact that Layla had been brutally sexually assaulted and received a blow to her head and any minor discrepancies in her story could be attributed to her dyslexia and post-traumatic disorder, which she suffered from after the assault, even to the extent of attempted suicide, the police charged her for falsifying rape allegations. She was tried, convicted and given a prison sentence of three years. The judge called her behaviour “wicked”. Layla became pregnant as a result of the rape and gave birth to a baby girl.

Lisa Longstaff of Women Against Rape says, “We know of 30 women jailed for so-called false allegations of rape in the past 12 months. Such prosecutions must be stopped. It is a galling diversion for women to be jailed when the vast majority of rapists are not — 90 percent of rapes are never reported and only 6.7 percent of those that are reach conviction on a full charge of rape. The prosecution of women and the disproportionate media coverage they get are putting rape victims off reporting and leaving all of us more vulnerable to attack. Is that what they want?”

The Crown Prosecution Services have issued new guidelines recently. These state that any rape allegations that are withdrawn by the victim out of fear will not be a reason to prosecute them on the grounds of falsification.

In 2002, a lot of fuss was made by the international media over the case of Zafran Bibi in Pakistan. Zafran’s husband was serving a jail sentence and in his absence she had been subjected to rape by her brother-in-law. As a result, she became pregnant. Whilst the accused was acquitted, she was handed the death sentence.

New laws were put in place in Pakistan by virtue of the Women’s Protection Act 2006. Firstly, rape is back on the penal statute as an offence and is no longer a part of the Hudood laws. Secondly, the offence of zina is no longer within the jurisdiction of the police. A complaint lies in the Sessions Court and can proceed only if all the requirements are fulfilled and the judge is satisfied that there are sufficient grounds to summon the accused. The law also safeguards the victim or a complainant of a rape case from being prosecuted for zina.

Pakistan is not the only country in the world where the incidence of rape is under-reported and charges brought against the victim. The FBI reports that eight percent of rape allegations are ‘unfounded’. Unfounded is not the same as false allegations. An allegation of rape can be unfounded because of various reasons like absence of physical violence, poor police investigation, lack of witnesses, the victim’s prior sexual history and the like. However, the unfounded allegations stand at an average of two percent.

The British Home Office conducted a huge scale study in 2005. It was found that out of the eight percent false rape allegations, charged by the police, only three percent was the true estimated figure. The rest was a result of the personal judgement of the police and violated the criteria set by law. Another study in Australia found that in 2.1 percent of the cases of alleged reported rape, the police threatened the victims or brought charges for falsifying rape against them.

Whilst I am aware that falsifying a rape allegation is not the same as being tried under the Hudood laws, the basic mindset of penalising the victim if her story is not accepted as being credible is similar. Secondly, the bias against victims of sexual abuse is not confined to our part of the world.

Pakistan has been ranked as the third most dangerous country for women. It is termed as barbaric and extremist. We are a 64-year-old nation, struggling to survive, caught between opportunist politicians and the worst terrorism in the world. Our prevailing literacy rate leaves a lot to be desired. As much as I admit our weaknesses, I am perplexed why women like Layla Ibrahim have to face the atrocity and indignity of being confined to prison for reporting a rape in a developed and liberal nation like the UK. Although no Hudood laws are the bane of existence for the women of Great Britain, it seems that they can exist anywhere in any form, regardless of how many treaties and conventions are ratified and acceded to.

The writer is an advocate of the high court