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Pakistan pack rape as reform laws stall
Bruce Loudon, South Asia correspondent
The Australian September 19, 2006
REPORTS of yet another pack rape in Pakistan emerged over the weekend as plans to amend laws aimed at making it easier to punish rapists stalled in the Islamabad parliament because of opposition from ultra-conservative Islamic parties.
The News International said a mother and daughter in a rural area had been abducted and gang-raped for 12 days because the daughter continued her schooling in defiance of villagers in her home near Multan.
The newspaper said the daughter had recently attained a masters degree in education at the Bahauddin Zahariya University. Precise details of what happened are sketchy, but it appears that the girl's father was also attacked by the assailants and that police took 12 days to act and save the women.
Reports of the rape claimed involvement by "a minister of state" but did not name him.
The case recalls that of Mukhtaran Mai, a woman who was imprisoned after she was raped in June 2002. She was freed only after intervention by the Pakistan Supreme Court.
Her case caused a global outcry at the time and highlighted the injustice of Pakistan's Islamic Hudood Ordinances, which criminalise all sex outside marriage.
Under the ordinances, unless the complainant in a rape case produces four male witnesses to support her claims, she will herself face punishment.
As a result, it has been almost impossible to prosecute rape cases, and thousands of Pakistani victims of rape are languishing in jail.
According to Pakistan's Human Rights Commission, a woman is raped every two hours and there is a gang rape every eight hours in Pakistan.
The Hudood Ordinances were introduced 17 years ago when the then military dictator General Zia ul-Haq was installing shariah law in Pakistan as a way of impressing his conservative Islamic backers at home and abroad.
Successive governments - including civilian administrations headed by Benazir Bhutto and Nawz Sharif - failed to change the Hudood Ordinances, despite persistent pressure from human rights groups.
Meanwhile, in India, more than 100 prominent intellectuals and others have launched a campaign against longstanding laws that outlaw homosexuality.
Pakistan
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