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 lawyer Asma Jahangir, who is 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.
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Notable cases
Since 2000, various women and teenage girls have begun to speak out after being sexually assaulted. Going against the tradition that a woman should suffer in silence, they have lobbied news outlets and politicians. A recent report from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan estimated that in 2009, 46 percent of unlawful female killings in Pakistan were "honour killings".
Historical accounts
During the Bangladesh Liberation War, it is estimated that between 400,000 and 600,000 women and girls were sexually assaulted by the Pakistan armed forces and the Al-Badr ("the moon") and the Al-Shams ("the sun") militias that supported them.
Issues
The group War Against Rape (WAR) has documented the severity of the rape problem in Pakistan and of police indifference to it. WAR is an NGO whose mission is to publicize the problem of rape in Pakistan; in a report released in 1992, of 60 reported cases of rape, 20% involved police officers. In 2008 the group claimed that several of its members were assaulted by a religious group as they tried to help a woman who had been gang raped identify her assailants.
According to a study carried out by Human Rights Watch there is a rape once every two hours, a gang rape every hour and 70-90 percent women are suffering with some kind of domestic violence.
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 a study by Human Rights Watch, there is a rape once every two hours and a gang rape every eight. Asma Jahangir, a lawyer and co-founder of the women's rights group Women's Action Forum, reported in a 1988 study of female detainees in Punjab that around 72 percent of them stated they had been sexually abused while in custody.
Child sexual abuse
In a study of child sexual abuse in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, out of a sample of 300 children 17% claimed to have been abused and in 1997 one child a day was reported as raped, gang raped or kidnapped for sexual gratification. In September 2014, the British Channel 4 broadcast a documentary called Pakistan's Hidden Shame, directed by Mohammed Naqvi and produced by Jamie Doran, which highlighted the problem of sexual abuse of street children in particular, an estimated 90 percent of whom have been sexually abused.
Minorities
The rape and assault of Christian, Hindu, Sikh and other minorities is reported to be prevalent in Pakistan. Inaction, refusal to file complaints, intimidation and corruption amongst the police and judiciary are also frequent problems.
The legal system
Honour killings, burnings, and rapes in Pakistan can be seen as indicating inadequate legal protection for women. In 1979 Pakistan passed into law the Hudood Ordinance, which made all forms of extra-marital sex, including rape, a crime against the state. During the time the Hudood Ordinance remained on the statute books, Human Rights Watch(HRW) documented extensive sexual abuse against female bonded laborers. In 1992, HRW also described extensive reports of physical and sexual abuse against female complainants by the police in a 106-page report. Reports of problems with reporting and prosecuting rape persist.
Attitudes
Rape in Pakistan came to international attention after Mukhtaran Bibi charged her attackers with rape and spoke out about her experiences. She was then denied the right to leave the country. The matter of her refused visit to the US was raised in an interview by the Washington Post with the then President of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, who claimed to champion "Moderate Islam" that "respect the rights of women", and complained that his country is "unfairly portrayed as a place where rape and other violence against women are rampant and frequently condoned". He said that he had relented over allowing her to leave the country, and remarked that being raped had "become a money-making concern", a way to get rich abroad. This statement provoked an uproar, and Musharraf later denied having made it.
The statement was made in the light of the fact that another rape victim, Dr Shazia Khalid, had left Pakistan, was living in Canada, and had spoken out against official attitudes to rape in Pakistan. Musharraf said of her: "It is the easiest way of doing it. Every second person now wants to come up and get all the [pause] because there is so much of finances. Dr. Shazia, I don't know. But maybe she's a case of money (too), that she wants to make money. She is again talking all against Pakistan, against whatever we've done. But I know what the realities are."
On May 29, 2013, the Council of Islamic Ideology, a constitutional body responsible for giving legal advice on Islamic issues to the Government of Pakistan and the Parliament, declared that DNA tests are not admissible as the main evidence in rape cases. A spokesman for the council said that DNA evidence could, at best, serve as supplementary evidence but could not supersede the Islamic laws laid out for determining rape complaints.