Violence and Discrimination: The Hudood
Ordinance in Pakistan
by Jennifer Crosby
The rights of women in many Muslim countries have recently been placed under intense scrutiny. The sensational media in the Western world is filled with headlines reporting the atrocities committed against women in the Muslim world. After all, aren’t they merely property? In the case of Pakistan, this assessment is not entirely incorrect. In 1979, the country enacted the Hudood Ordinance. It is based on Muslim Sharia law that punishes all citizens for immoral sexual activity, as well as theft, alcohol consumption, and making false charges. The ordinance, however, focuses primarily on the appropriate punishment for adultery and fornication, and thereby ensures the complete subjection of women. The problem herein lies in what the ordinance implies.
In Pakistan, a country that is 97% Muslim, a woman is raped approximately once every two hours. However, the Hudood Ordinance causes most sexual assaults to go unreported. When a woman reports a rape, one of two things must happen for her assailant to be punished. Either the defendant must give a full confession, or four male Muslim witnesses must testify. A woman’s testimony in trial carries only half the weight of a man’s. The testimony of a non-Muslim is generally disregarded. Thus, the odds of either of these things ever happening are slim to none. And if confession or witness is not given, then the woman has admitted to fornication, and she will very likely be placed on trial for it. Under the hadd, the listing of punishments in the Hudood Ordinance, if the woman is convicted of fornication, she is subject to punishment by public beating, imprisonment or stoning. It is important to note here that although death by stoning is listed as proper punishment under the ordinance, and has been ordered several times, it has never actually been carried out. Nonetheless, most women in Pakistan are afraid to report sexual crimes because they know it will most likely lead to their own conviction. This situation often results in many women being taken advantage of by males throughout the country.
Cases of the gross injustice caused by this ordinance have only recently received coverage by Western media. In recent years, two instances of Pakistan’s discriminatory laws gained notoriety. In June 2002, a trial council ordered the rape of Mukhtaran Mai, a woman living in the village of Meerwala, Pakistan. Mai’s brother, Shakoor, had been accused of having immoral relations with a girl from a neighboring tribe, the Mastoi. While Shakoor and his family vehemently denied the allegations, men from the Mastoi tribe sodomized the boy as punishment. Shakoor threatened to report the crime, and as a result, he was called to a tribal council, where he was once again accused of assaulting the girl. He was told that he would be acquitted if he would bring his sister to testify on his behalf. When she was brought forth, she was taken away, and brutally raped.
Unlike most sexual assaults in Pakistan, this one was reported both to the authorities and the international press. It was through the press’s wide coverage of the event that Mai finally got the justice she deserved. However, her story is one of few that end happily. To the Western world, it is certainly unfathomable that a village council could see rape as an appropriate punishment for anyone, let alone an innocent bystander. Under the current standards of the Hudood Ordinance, it is nearly impossible for a woman to report sexual abuse. It was only the foreign press and international outcry that kept Mai from suffering the fate of many like her.
A similar incident occurred in 2005. Shazia Khalid was a female medical doctor living in Pakistan, working at a petroleum plant in a remote area. In the middle of the night, an intruder broke into her room and she was brutally assaulted. It was later revealed that this intruder was actually an army officer. Khalid suffered critical injuries from the attack; but instead receiving proper treatment, she was drugged and remained unconscious for three days, unable to report the incident. She was placed in a psychiatric ward, where she was declared insane. Pakistan’s military President General Pervez Musharraf refused to help Khalid, asserting the officer’s innocence. After the incident, Khalid fled to London, and has applied for asylum in Canada. This is a startling example of the government’s insensitivity towards the rights of woman. In a speech addressing human rights concerns in Pakistan, Musharraf openly dismissed the cases of both Mai and Khalid.
The Hudood Ordinance is extremely dangerous to the livelihoods of women living in Pakistan. One would expect a country of such religious fervor to have laws governing sexual conduct, but it is the blatant gender-based discrimination taken for granted in these laws that is so troubling. The government’s complete disregard for atrocities committed against women is appalling. Even more appalling is that the United States considers Pakistan to be a key ally. Although Musharraf has held a military dictatorship for several years, and refuses to hold elections, the United States continues to support him and his regime. They know that if elections were to be held, a Muslim fundamentalist would come into power. However, until the Hudood Ordinance is overturned, no support for the Pakistani government can be given with a clear conscience.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shazia_Khalid
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/31/opinion/31kristof.html?ex=1140498000&
en=643cfe5bd66f8622&ei=5070
http://www.wworld.org/crisis/crisis.asp?ID=310
http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2005/06/14/Mukhtaran-Bibi
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/02/opinion/02kristof.html?ex=1280635200&en=54a08ea3dbc7f4d1&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudood_Ordinance
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4623528.stm
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/01/18/pakist12254.htm
http://hrsolidarity.net/mainfile.php/2003vol13no04-05/2292/
