THE SCOPE OF THE PROBLEM OF
VIOLENCE
AGAINST WOMEN
Women in Pakistan face the threat of
multiple forms of violence, including sexual violence by family members,
strangers, and state agents; domestic abuse, including spousal murder and
being burned, disfigured with acid, beaten, and threatened; ritual honor
killings; and custodial abuse and torture. In its annual report for 1997,
the nongovernmental Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) reported,
"The worst victims were women of the poor and middle classes. Their
resourcelessness not only made them the primary target of the police and
the criminals, it also rendered them more vulnerable to oppressive customs
and mores inside homes and outside." 38
The most endemic form of violence faced by women is violence in the
home.39 For 1997, HRCP reported that "domestic violence
remained a pervasive phenomenon. The supremacy of the male and
subordination of the female assumed to be part of the culture and even to
have sanction of the religion made violence by one against the other in a
variety of its forms an accepted and pervasive feature of domestic
life."40 A United Nations report on women echoes this point,
explaining the nature of domestic violence generally in terms of the
structure of the family:
Comprehensive studies on domestic violence
indicate that domestic violence is a structural rather than causal
problem. It is the structure of the family that leads to or legitimizes
the acts, emotions or phenomenon that are identified as the
"causes" of domestic violence under the causal analysis. This
family structure is a "structure that is mirrored and confirmed in
the structure of society, which condones the oppression of women and
tolerates male violence as one of the instruments in the perpetuation of
this power balance."41
Estimates of the percentage of women who
experience domestic violence in Pakistan range from 70 to upwards of 90
percent.42 According to HRCP, "The extreme forms it took
included driving a woman to suicide or engineering an `accident'
(frequently the bursting of a kitchen stove) to cause her death . . .
usually . . . when the husband, often in collaboration with his side of
the family, felt that the dower or other gifts he had expected from his
in-laws in consequence of the marriage were not forthcoming, or/and he
wanted to marry again, or he expected an inheritance from the death of his
wife."43 During 1997, the Lahore press reported an average of
more than four local cases of women being burnt weekly, three of the four
fatally.44 Police follow-up on these cases was negligible, with
only six suspects taken into custody out of the 215 cases reported in
Lahore newspapers during the year.45 In 1997, there was not a
single conviction in a "stove-death" case in the country.46
The Lahore press also reported 265 homicides against women in the
local area resulting from other forms of intrafamily violence. In the
majority of cases, husbands and in-laws were responsible for the murders,
while in other cases the perpetrators were brothers and fathers.47
Honor killings are another recurrent form
of familial violence against women, and again the perpetrators continue to
find vindication in the eyes of both the law and society. The
practice of summary killing of a woman suspected of an illicit liaison,
known as karo kari in Sindh and Balochistan, is known to occur in
all parts of the country.48 The Sindh government has reported an
annual figure of 300 for such killings.49 HRCP's own findings
reveal that in 1997 there wereeighty-six karo kari killings in Larkana,
Sindh, alone, with fifty-three of the victims being women.50
Sexual assault is also alarmingly common in Pakistan. HRCP estimated
that in 1997 at least eight women, more than half of them minors, were
raped every twenty-four hours nationwide.51 The high incidence of
sexual assault in the country is partly fostered by the societal
subordination of women to men, by the custom of avenging oneself upon
one's enemies by raping their women, who are seen as repositories of
family honor, and by the impunity with which these crimes are carried out.
There is no question that violence against women is an enormous problem in
Pakistan that is exacerbated and perpetuated by the government's
inadequate response to the problem. In fact, the state's response to
domestic violence in Pakistan is so minimal and cases of intrafamily
violence are so rarely addressed in any way by the criminal justice system
that it was not possible for us to achieve one of our research goals for
this report: that is, to track specific domestic violence criminal suits
in order to identify larger patterns in the prosecution of domestic
violence. We found that despite the staggering levels of intrafamily
violence against women, it is widely perceived by the law enforcement
system and society at large as a private family matter, not subject to
government intervention let alone criminal sanction. At present
there is virtually no prosecution of crimes of assault and battery when
perpetrated by male family members against women; even intrafamily murder
and attempted murder rarely are prosecuted.52 Consequently, much of
this report deals almost exclusively with identifiable trends in the state
response to non-familial sexual assault.
This report evaluates the different elements of the state's total failure
to provide protection and effective remedies to women victims of violence.
It takes a comprehensive look at the way the criminal justice system deals
with cases of violence against women, focusing on the interaction between
the police and legal establishments and the medico-legal system. Often
overlooked, the maintenance of an efficient and responsive medico-legal
system is a crucial part of the state's responsibility to ensure that
survivors of assault have an effective remedy and that perpetrators of
crimes are brought to justice. The current procedures for obtaining
medical evidence in assault cases, particularly in cases of sexual assault
of women, are woefully inadequate, neither ensuring that perpetrators are
convicted nor providing women with appropriate treatment. Other barriers
encountered by women victims of violence who attempt to navigate the
criminal justice system include inveterate and widespread bias against
them and their cases, official incompetence and corruption at all levels,
systemic lack of professionalism and administrative inefficiency.
38 Human Rights
Commission of Pakistan, State of Human Rights in 1996,
(Lahore: Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, 1997), p. 184.
39 Human Rights
Commission of Pakistan, State of Human Rights in 1997, p.
130.
40 Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, State of Human Rights in
1997, p. 185.
41 Report of the World
Conference of the United Nations Decade for Women: Equality, Development
and Peace, Copenhagen, 14-30 July 1980 (UN Publication, Sales No.
E.80.IV.3 and Corrigendum), p. 30, cited in Yasmine Hassan, The Haven
Becomes Hell (Lahore: Shirkat Gah, 1995), p. 6.
42 HRCP as well as an informal study conducted by the Women's Ministry
concluded that at least 80 percent of all women in Pakistan are subjected
to domestic violence. Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, State of
Human Rights in 1996, p. 130; Women's Ministry, Battered Housewives
in Pakistan (Islamabad: Women's Ministry, 1985). Amnesty International
has reported that some 95 percent of women are believed to be subjected to
such violence. Amnesty International, Women's Human Rights Remain a
Dead Letter (London: Amnesty International, 1997), ASA 33/07/97.
Amnesty International has also reported findings by women's groups in
Pakistan that 70 percent of women are subjected to violence in their
homes. Amnesty International, Pakistan: No Progress on Women's
Rights (London: Amnesty International, 1998), ASA 33/13/98.
43 Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, State of Human Rights in
1997, p. 185.
44 Ibid.
45 Ibid.
46 Ibid.
47 Ibid., p. 186.
48 Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, State of Human Rights in
1997, p. 187.
49 Ibid.
50 Ibid.
51 Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, State of Human Rights in
1997, p. 185.
52
See generally Amnesty International, Pakistan: Women's Human Rights
Remain a Dead Letter, (London: 1997).
excerpt from:
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/pakistan |
