Hudood Laws Must Go

The Dawn

Opinion

February 15, 2006

By Zubeida Mustafa

LAST Tuesday was women’s day in the National Assembly. Four bills directly relating to them were introduced in the house. The most important of these was the one moved by the PPP (Parliamentarians) simply titled the Hudood Laws (Repeal) Bill 2005. The Hudood Ordinances, the most anti-women and anti-social of laws to be placed on the statute book in Pakistan, were never brought before the Assembly.

They were promulgated as ordinances by a military dictator and have from their inception remained anathema to most women and human rights activists in the country. Once the implications of the Zina Ordinance came to the forefront, women rallied round the Women’s Action Forum, which was created in September 1981, to fight this evil law.

But once adopted, the Hudood Ordinances have proved to be almost invincible. In the tenure of the present Assembly alone, last Tuesday’s bill was the third attempt to have the Hudood laws struck off. Legislation to repeal the Hudood laws was presented twice before in the house as a clause of the Protection and Empowerment of Women Bill by MNA Sherry Rehman (the first time in 2003 and again in 2004) only to be rejected outright by the speaker on “technical” grounds.

Seeing the summary treatment meted out to the previous bill, Ms Rehman feels that the government might have felt uncomfortable with its provisions since it covered a number of other sensitive matters directly relating to women — universalization of female literacy, prohibition of domestic violence and honour killings and equal pay for equal work. Hence, not to be outdone, Sherry Rehman sponsored the new bill that focuses on only one item, namely, the repeal of the four ordinances (Offence against Property, Offence of Zina, Offence of Qazf, and Execution of the Punishment of Whipping) and the Prohibition Order collectively known as the Hudood Laws. Should one be surprised that the ruling party supported her move and the bill was sent immediately to the select committee?

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