Rape is a criminal offense in Pakistan. Punishment for rape in Pakistan under Pakistani laws is either the death penalty or imprisonment of between ten and twenty-five years. For cases related to gang rape, the punishment is either the death penalty or life imprisonment. DNA tests and other scientific evidence are used in prosecuting rape cases in Pakistan.
Rape in Pakistan came to international attention after the politically sanctioned rape of Mukhtaran Bibi. The group War Against Rape (WAR) has documented the severity of rape in Pakistan, and the police indifference to it. According to Women’s Studies professor Shahla Haeri, rape in Pakistan is “often institutionalized and has the tacit and at times the explicit approval of the state”. According to late lawyer Asma Jahangir, who was a co-founder of the women’s rights group Women’s Action Forum, up to seventy-two percent of women in custody in Pakistan are physically or sexually abused.
In 2019, the Government of Pakistan established more than 1,000 special courts across the country. These special courts would focus only on addressing the issues related to violence against women in Pakistan. The establishment of special courts was hailed by many human rights organizations.
1947 and 1979:
Preceding 1979, Section 375 of the Pakistan Penal Code expressed that young ladies more youthful than the age of fourteen were denied from sex acts regardless of whether assent was acquired Despite this, the past laws additionally guarantees that assault during the marriage isn’t viewed as assault as long as though the spouse is over the period of fourteen.
In 1979, the Pakistani lawmaking body made assault and infidelity offenses without precedent for the nation’s history, with the section of The Offense of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance, 1979. The Ordinance changed the discipline for such offenses from detainment and fines, to disciplines, for example, stoning to death. Although this new law is expressed to ensure ladies, it fortifies that so as to do as such there must be solid proof. The proof was most usually regarded to be an observer who could affirm that the assault really happened. In 1979, the observer must be esteemed as believable and legitimate by the Qazi.
As indicated by the Ordinance, assault is characterized as:
(a) The sex is happening against the desire of the person
(b) The individual didn’t agree to participate in sexual intercourse
(c) The culprit acquires assent by the casualty by undermining, harming or making dread the victim.
(d) The culprit and casualty are not married
2006 Women Protection Bill
Additional data: Women’s Protection Bill
On 15 November 2006, the National Assembly of Pakistan passed Women Protection Bill to alter the intensely censured 1979 Hudood Ordinance laws. Under the new bill, capital punishment for extramarital sex and the requirement for casualties to deliver four observers to demonstrate assault cases were taken out. Capital punishment and beating for individuals sentenced for having consensual sex outside marriage were taken out. Notwithstanding, Consensual sex outside marriage was as yet treated as a criminal offense with a discipline of five years in jail or a fine of US$165. The Women Protection Bill depicted assault as:
“A man is said to submit assault who has sex with a lady under conditions falling under any of the five after depictions,
(I) against her will.
(ii) Without her consent
(iii) With her assent, when the assent has been gotten by placing her in dread of death or of hurt,
(iv) with her assent when the man realizes that he isn’t hitched to her and that the assent is given since she accepts that the man is someone else to whom she is or trusts herself to be hitched; or
(v) With or without her assent when she is under sixteen years of age.”
The discipline for assault under the 2006 Women Protection Bill is either demise or detainment of somewhere in the range of ten and a quarter-century. For cases identified with assault, the discipline is either capital punishment or life imprisonment.
Criminal Law (Offense of Rape) – Act 2016
On 7 October 2016, Pakistan’s parliament unanimously passed a new anti-rape and anti-honor killing bills. The new laws introduced harsher punishments for the perpetrators of such crimes. According to the new anti-rape bill, DNA testing was made mandatory in rape cases.[16] Sabotaging or disrupting the work of a police officer or Government official could result in imprisonment of 1 year under the new law. Government officials who are found taking advantage of their official position to commit acts of rape (e.g. custodial rape) are liable to imprisonment for life and a fine. According to the new law, anyone who rapes a minor or a mentally or physically disabled person will be liable for the death penalty or life imprisonment.
