After reading this article I was left with a sense of gratitude that I don't live in a Country that treats females and children like garbage. Pakistan wake up and get civilized, it's the year 2006 not 800AD. Jesus this is beyond belief, where is the out cry? Can these males walk upright, or do their vile knuckles drag on the ground?
October 12, 2006
Pakistan: Islamic Laws Encourage Gang-Rape Epidemic - Children Are Victims
We reported on the failed attempts to amend Pakistan's controversial Hudood Ordinances on September 17. Pressure from Islamist politicians caused the amendments to be watered down until they finally became meaningless and were withdrawn. This protracted process had gone on for months, since the announcements of amendments to the Hudood Laws had first made on May 25. The issue of these discriminatory laws is still unresolved, and while there is a failure of political will to repeal these laws, an epidemic of gang rape has flourished in Pakistan.
The Hudood Ordinances, which are a part of the Pakistan Penal Code which are derived from sharia, were introduced on February 10,1979, by the dictator General Zia ul-Haq. What is so controversial about these laws, apart from their breaking Article 25 of the constitution which outlaws discrimination on the grounds of gender or religion, is their blurring of the distinction between rape and adultery.
In article 8 of the Hudood laws, proof of zina (illegal intercourse, i.e. adultery or fornication) or zina-bil-jabr (rape) requires that either a) "the accused makes before a Court of competent jurisdiction a confession of the commission of the offence" or b): "at least four Muslim adult male witnesses, about whom the Court is satisfied, having regard to the requirements of tazkiyah al-shuhood, that they are truthful persons and abstain from major sins (kabair), give evidence as eye-widnesses of the act of penetration necessary to the offence: Provided that, if the accused is a non-Muslim, the eye-witnesses may be non-Muslims."
Firstly, the law means that non-Muslims cannot testify against Muslims, contravening Article 25 of the constitution. They also have to be male, against Article 25. If there are only Muslim women as witnesses, there must be eight ready to testify, as a woman's testimony in Islamic law is worth half that of a man.
Secondly, the law means that for a rape or act of adultery to be prosecuted, the same rules apply. Four Muslims must have witnessed such an act, which in practice rarely happens in cases of rape or adultery.
But most importantly, adultery (zina) is proven if a person admits to the act. Therefore, a woman who has been raped and takes the matter to court or reports it to the police is then accused of adultery, unless she can muster four male Muslim witnesses to the event. The maximum penalty for zina or zina-al-jabr is stoning to death.
In September, we wrote that HCRP, the Pakistan Human Rights Commission, estimated that a gang rape happened every eight minutes. When there is no remote possibility of a male being reprimanded under the Hudood Ordinances, such a situation enables incidents of gang rape to flourish.
Women sometimes are raped as part of a punishment ordered by a village court, as happened to Mukhtar Mai. The punishment was for a "crime" committed by her brother, not for any fault of her own. This traditional culture of condoning rape has only been added to by the Hudood Ordinances.
Culturally, in regions such as the Punjab and in North-West Frontier Province, "compensation marriages", called respectively vani or swara, often involve giving away a girl child in a forced marriage, for a "crime" committed by a male relative. These cases involve children, sometimes children who are under the age of five, as we reported on July 19, August 5 and numerous other cases (type "vani" into our search engine). Sometimes, vani cases have involved the promising in forced marriage of children who have not yet been born.
Vani marriages, like the authorization of gang-rape which happened to Mukhtar Mai, are usually ordered by a village court, called in Sindh and North-West Province a jirga and in Punjab a panchayat.
Vani was officially outlawed at the start of 2005, but these cases have continued, and though a ten year jail sentence is the maximum penalty for vani marriage, no-one so far has been convicted for this offense.
When vani became outlawed, honor killings were also outlawed. But because the law against honor killing involved aspects of Islamic law, perpetrators can walk away scot-free. This stems from the clause of "compoundability" in the ruling. If a relative of a victim accepts "blood money" from the perpetrator, the killer can walk free. Honor killings happen almost exclusively when a person (mostly a girl) is killed by her own relatives, so a clause allowing "compoundability" serves to compound the injustice against the victim.
We wrote of honor killings, vani and forced marriages on May 28, and demonstrated that as well as being inter-related problems, they are rooted in an Islamic perspective which both demeans women and treats them as bargaining chips. This perspective also judges an immature child to be a sexual object.
When the founder of Islam, Mohammed, consummated his marriage to Ayesha when the latter was only 9 years old, a dangerous precedence has been set. Child marriages, vani marriages, forced marriages and honour killings also happen frequently in the neighbouring country of Afghanistan. Girl children are bartered and sold for the sexual gratification of older males in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and because of Mohammed's example with Ayesha, these men feel no shame.
But today, states the Pakistan Daily Times, more than 200 girls have been gang raped so far this year.
The details were amongst some disturbing statistics compiled by Sahil the only national organization monitoring child abuse in Pakistan, which was founded in 1996.
There were also 1,146 reported cases of child abuse in the first half of this year, states a report by Sahil. These incidents happened in madrassas, mosques, jails and schools, with the abusers being Muslim clerics, policemen and teachers.
Of these abuse cases, 73% of victims were girls (849 cases against 315 cases involving boys). Broken down further, 47% of the cases of abuse against girls involved abduction (401 cases) with the intention of rape. Of these cases, there were 213 incidents of gang rape (25% of all female abuse cases).
There were 79 incidents of sodomy against boys, and 100 cases of molestation against boys.
Children were the victims of 2,057 abusers. More than half of these abusers were known to the victims (1,380 abusers). In only 7% of reported cases of abuse were the abusers neighbours, relatives or members of the immediate family.
71% of abuse cases happened in rural areas, and 29% in urban regions.
Punjab had the highest number of child abuse cases (789 instances, 68% of the total), then Sindh in the southeast with 276 cases (23% of the total), the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA, which lie on the border with Afghanistan) with 68 cases (5.1%) North-West Frontier Province (21 cases or 2.07%) and lastly Balochistan with 10 cases (less than 1% of the total).
The Sahil report claimed that there are no safe places for children, with incidents of abuse happening in a wide range of locations, from fields and graveyards to construction sites, jails, schools and home.
Girls aged from 1 to 15 were the victims, and the majority of the boy victims were aged 6 to 10 years old.
On the same day as the Sahil report was published, another grim report was produced today by SPARC, the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child, concerning acts of violence against children.
From the Pakistan Daily Times:
October 12, 2006
Pakistan: Islamic Laws Encourage Gang-Rape Epidemic - Children Are Victims
We reported on the failed attempts to amend Pakistan's controversial Hudood Ordinances on September 17. Pressure from Islamist politicians caused the amendments to be watered down until they finally became meaningless and were withdrawn. This protracted process had gone on for months, since the announcements of amendments to the Hudood Laws had first made on May 25. The issue of these discriminatory laws is still unresolved, and while there is a failure of political will to repeal these laws, an epidemic of gang rape has flourished in Pakistan.
The Hudood Ordinances, which are a part of the Pakistan Penal Code which are derived from sharia, were introduced on February 10,1979, by the dictator General Zia ul-Haq. What is so controversial about these laws, apart from their breaking Article 25 of the constitution which outlaws discrimination on the grounds of gender or religion, is their blurring of the distinction between rape and adultery.
In article 8 of the Hudood laws, proof of zina (illegal intercourse, i.e. adultery or fornication) or zina-bil-jabr (rape) requires that either a) "the accused makes before a Court of competent jurisdiction a confession of the commission of the offence" or b): "at least four Muslim adult male witnesses, about whom the Court is satisfied, having regard to the requirements of tazkiyah al-shuhood, that they are truthful persons and abstain from major sins (kabair), give evidence as eye-widnesses of the act of penetration necessary to the offence: Provided that, if the accused is a non-Muslim, the eye-witnesses may be non-Muslims."
Firstly, the law means that non-Muslims cannot testify against Muslims, contravening Article 25 of the constitution. They also have to be male, against Article 25. If there are only Muslim women as witnesses, there must be eight ready to testify, as a woman's testimony in Islamic law is worth half that of a man.
Secondly, the law means that for a rape or act of adultery to be prosecuted, the same rules apply. Four Muslims must have witnessed such an act, which in practice rarely happens in cases of rape or adultery.
But most importantly, adultery (zina) is proven if a person admits to the act. Therefore, a woman who has been raped and takes the matter to court or reports it to the police is then accused of adultery, unless she can muster four male Muslim witnesses to the event. The maximum penalty for zina or zina-al-jabr is stoning to death.
In September, we wrote that HCRP, the Pakistan Human Rights Commission, estimated that a gang rape happened every eight minutes. When there is no remote possibility of a male being reprimanded under the Hudood Ordinances, such a situation enables incidents of gang rape to flourish.
Women sometimes are raped as part of a punishment ordered by a village court, as happened to Mukhtar Mai. The punishment was for a "crime" committed by her brother, not for any fault of her own. This traditional culture of condoning rape has only been added to by the Hudood Ordinances.
Culturally, in regions such as the Punjab and in North-West Frontier Province, "compensation marriages", called respectively vani or swara, often involve giving away a girl child in a forced marriage, for a "crime" committed by a male relative. These cases involve children, sometimes children who are under the age of five, as we reported on July 19, August 5 and numerous other cases (type "vani" into our search engine). Sometimes, vani cases have involved the promising in forced marriage of children who have not yet been born.
Vani marriages, like the authorization of gang-rape which happened to Mukhtar Mai, are usually ordered by a village court, called in Sindh and North-West Province a jirga and in Punjab a panchayat.
Vani was officially outlawed at the start of 2005, but these cases have continued, and though a ten year jail sentence is the maximum penalty for vani marriage, no-one so far has been convicted for this offense.
When vani became outlawed, honor killings were also outlawed. But because the law against honor killing involved aspects of Islamic law, perpetrators can walk away scot-free. This stems from the clause of "compoundability" in the ruling. If a relative of a victim accepts "blood money" from the perpetrator, the killer can walk free. Honor killings happen almost exclusively when a person (mostly a girl) is killed by her own relatives, so a clause allowing "compoundability" serves to compound the injustice against the victim.
We wrote of honor killings, vani and forced marriages on May 28, and demonstrated that as well as being inter-related problems, they are rooted in an Islamic perspective which both demeans women and treats them as bargaining chips. This perspective also judges an immature child to be a sexual object.
When the founder of Islam, Mohammed, consummated his marriage to Ayesha when the latter was only 9 years old, a dangerous precedence has been set. Child marriages, vani marriages, forced marriages and honour killings also happen frequently in the neighbouring country of Afghanistan. Girl children are bartered and sold for the sexual gratification of older males in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and because of Mohammed's example with Ayesha, these men feel no shame.
But today, states the Pakistan Daily Times, more than 200 girls have been gang raped so far this year.
The details were amongst some disturbing statistics compiled by Sahil the only national organization monitoring child abuse in Pakistan, which was founded in 1996.
There were also 1,146 reported cases of child abuse in the first half of this year, states a report by Sahil. These incidents happened in madrassas, mosques, jails and schools, with the abusers being Muslim clerics, policemen and teachers.
Of these abuse cases, 73% of victims were girls (849 cases against 315 cases involving boys). Broken down further, 47% of the cases of abuse against girls involved abduction (401 cases) with the intention of rape. Of these cases, there were 213 incidents of gang rape (25% of all female abuse cases).
There were 79 incidents of sodomy against boys, and 100 cases of molestation against boys.
Children were the victims of 2,057 abusers. More than half of these abusers were known to the victims (1,380 abusers). In only 7% of reported cases of abuse were the abusers neighbours, relatives or members of the immediate family.
71% of abuse cases happened in rural areas, and 29% in urban regions.
Punjab had the highest number of child abuse cases (789 instances, 68% of the total), then Sindh in the southeast with 276 cases (23% of the total), the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA, which lie on the border with Afghanistan) with 68 cases (5.1%) North-West Frontier Province (21 cases or 2.07%) and lastly Balochistan with 10 cases (less than 1% of the total).
The Sahil report claimed that there are no safe places for children, with incidents of abuse happening in a wide range of locations, from fields and graveyards to construction sites, jails, schools and home.
Girls aged from 1 to 15 were the victims, and the majority of the boy victims were aged 6 to 10 years old.
On the same day as the Sahil report was published, another grim report was produced today by SPARC, the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child, concerning acts of violence against children.
From the Pakistan Daily Times:
Data collected by SPARC from various newspapers from January 1
