Women in Jail:
A report 
by Alizey Khan IX-N

Introduction

Women in Pakistan often suffer widespread human rights violations. Many of these violations take place in the country's many jails, where they are beaten and harshly treated by the prison wardens and police themselves. Since the passage of the Hudood Laws in 1979, the number of jailed women in Pakistan has severely risen. Many of these women do not even deserve to be in jail in the first place. These Hudood laws severely discriminate against women and thus leave no chance for justice. Women are not allowed to testify in court and thus are often convicted for a crime when they were the victim. In this way, Pakistan with its discriminating laws and corrupt policemen could be considered, for some women, a jail in itself.


Interview with Mamoon Kazi, former Chief Justice of Pakistan


1.	What are the laws regarding the treatment of jailed women in Pakistan?

"Well, by law they should be taken care of, serve their sentences and be granted basic amenities and facilities such as food, clothes, a bed, a blanket and medical aid."

2. What about those women who are abused by wardens? What are the repercussions for those wardens?

"Obviously no woman should be abused, and any warden who is accused and found guilty of this would be stripped of their duties and punished as any criminal would be."

3. And what are the laws regarding this abroad?

"I assume the laws abroad would be very similar."

4.	How are these laws implemented abroad and in Pakistan?

"They are implemented as any other law. The victim lodges a complaint. If there is enough evidence there will be a court trial, and if the accused is found guilty then they will be punished."

5.	What about "karo kari" (honour killing) and the laws surrounding that?

"There's no specific law, it varies from province to province… Again, if the accused is found guilty they will be convicted of murder and punished."



Blaming the Victim

"Fifteen-year-old Jehan Mina became pregnant after being raped by her uncle and cousin. Her family filed a complaint of rape but since there were no witnesses, the alleged rapists were acquitted. Yet her pregnancy was proof that zina had taken place and she was sentenced to 100 lashes in public. The punishment was later converted to 3 years imprisonment and 10 lashes," claimed an excerpt from a 1997 Amnesty International News Release on Pakistan.
Pakistan is one of the world's few countries in which a rape victim can be in turn sentenced to death for adultery. In many cases, a rape victim complains to the police where she is in turn put in custody and raped again- this time by the police themselves.
Should she try to bring the matter to court, the police will refuse to give evidence, thus causing the court to rule that the police have never been involved in violent matters and in fact the victim is herself guilty of adultery and should thus be sentenced to flogging- or worse, death by stoning.

"This court is constrained to conclude that allegations of police violence are baseless…" - Excerpt from a 1992 magistrate's report

On November 27, 1988, the Manchester Guardian Weekly newspaper stated that approximately seventy percent of women jailed specifically for zina were raped by police officers because they were perceived as immoral and dishonoured.



Children in Jail

In Pakistan, over 8 percent of women prisoners live with their children. The jails in which they live are overcrowded and rife with death and diseases. 

These children are born in places with no facilities for birthing and suffer the hardships of prison life through no fault of their own thanks to an ineffective system. Many of them were conceived through rape; a fact which places an extra burden on their small shoulders. They are denied proper living conditions and educations.

269 women along with 61 children are lodged in the Karachi Women's Jail. Twenty of them are infants, while the others are aged between one and ten years, including 22 girls.

"Prisoners are forced to breathe on each other while locked in a small room all night. Any infectious disease is rapidly transmitted. A few examples are the outbreak of meningitis and skin diseases in the Rawalpindi, Lahore and Sheikhupura jails," said former jail worker and medical officer, Dr Hasnaat Riaz, in an interview.



The Hudood Ordinances

Introduced by Zia ul-Haq in 1979, the Hudood ordinances criminalize fornication (zina), rape (zina bil-jabr) and adultery among other things. These laws clearly discriminate on the basis of gender, thus conflicting with the Pakistani Constitution. Under these laws, proof of rape requires four male Muslim witnesses to testify to the act of penetration. Women- not just the victim, but any woman- cannot give a testimony. Neither can any non-Muslim witness.

."How is it possible for a woman to bring four witnesses to prove that she has been raped?"  asked Aneesa Zeb, a women's rights activist and lawyer in Peshawar.

This archaic law is indeed unfair as it is highly unlikely that there would be any such witnesses during a rape case that would be likely to testify against the rapist.

There have been many attempts to repeal these laws over the years. Pervez Musharraf himself has emphasized his commitment to women's rights, but his government hasn't tried to change or overrule the Hudood ordinances. Neither did Benazir Bhutto in the 1990s. Human rights activists say the laws, and their abuse, help promote the very extremism that Musharraf is trying to fight in Pakistan. When Musharraf first learned of one victim's case during a meeting with foreign reporters in Islamabad, 2001, he was startled. "Is that the law? Now? I don't even know," he said. He has said that he does not plan to change these laws for fear of upsetting the religious conservatives or "mullahs".



The Zina Ordinance

The Zina Ordinance was introduced with the Hudood Ordinances in 1979. This ordinance established separate ages of majority for females and males (16 for females and 18 for males or the attainment of puberty for either) and abolished the statutory rape law, narrowing the definition of rape. Due to this law, young girls have been prosecuted for extra-marital intercourse due to having attained puberty whereas in other countries the man would automatically be charged with statutory rape. The zina law has resulted in many women's reluctance to report rape cases, so for them justice is never achieved and their abuse often continues.
Unfortunately this law has been subject to constant misuse ever since its introduction. Countless women are targeted, often with false evidence and witnesses, using this law for ulterior motives. Often, neighbours and relatives try to teach the woman's family a lesson or take her belongings by falsely accusing her of zina and having her jailed. In fact, the Human Rights Organization has appealed to the Government for its repeal as it is so commonly misused. This very law has been the basis of countless reports of honour killing as well as the incarceration of a large percentage of women jailed in Pakistan today.



Honour Killing

Honour Killing, or karo kari as it is known in Pakistan, is a deplorable act in which a man or group of men perceive a particular female relative's actions as immoral. She is then considered a 'stain' on the honour of the family and killed. This so called 'immoral' behaviour can include infidelity, flirting or even walking with or near a man to whom she is not married.
Karo kari is in fact permissible by law. Introduced in 1990, the Qisas and Diyat law directs offences against the victim rather than the murderer. It prescribes that the death penalty can not be imposed for murder if the heir of the victim is a direct descendent of the offender. The court, in these cases, only imposes a maximum sentence of 14 years' imprisonment on the offender. Thus, if a man murders his wife he is not given the usual murderer's death penalty but instead only 14 years in jail. The Zina and Hudood laws provided the offenders with a further legal coverage, and thus a group of male family members could plot to kill a female relative without fear of legal consequence.

In 2003, around 1,261 cases of karo kari were reported- with 938 of them (74.4%) against women.



What can be done?

There are many things that can be done to stop the mistreatment of women and jailed women in Pakistan. First and foremost, the discriminating laws can be abolished or modified. A society such as hours will take a long time to change but if the position of women is to change in any way a reform is needed. Most Presidents and Generals up 'til now have taken an ambivalent, wary or indifferent approach towards the treatment of women in court and prison, and obviously for any change to occur in this area we must have a leader with more than empty promises. Policemen and wardens should be screened before employment as often they are extremely unsuitable for the job- being criminals themselves in their treatment of these women! 

Many steps have already been taken, which is a positive note as it indicates that more steps can still be taken. Benazir Bhutto employed many policewomen and human rights groups have opened centres such as the Crisis Centre for Women in Distress located in Punjab which had already helped 89 women through legal and medical referrals, a telephone distress hotline and counselling by the end of 2001. The Musharraf government has brought fewer charges against women than others in the past and modern courts have shown greater leniency towards women in their sentences.



Conclusion

It seems that the unfair legal treatment of women Pakistan is slowly beginning to decrease, although rape, torture and murder still occur and still seem to be condoned by a backward society.

It is interesting to note that even in the year 2004 when so many Pakistanis consider themselves modern and liberal that the attitudes of so many regarding women have not changed. Here is an excerpt from a comment posted on the Internet in response to a March 2004 article about the problems with honour killing and the subsequent death of innocent women.

"For Islamic women, infidelity, flirting or other behaviour perceived (by the ever-wise readers of the Quran) as 'immoral' are unpardonable crimes. A woman who is a proud Muslim should happily embrace death for her un-Islamic behaviour.
Quran prescribed that women be modest. Can an immodest woman be a good Muslim? If you are not a good Muslim, why should you go on living?
Only by following the Quran, keeping women modest, killing the immodest ones and preventing un-Islamic corruption of men and women that you can progress." - Comment by "Ralph"

It is no wonder, then, that this widespread exploitation of women occurs in a society where so many seem to think this way. A social change is in order, although it would be almost impossible to achieve without some sort of international or at least real governmental help.