When a woman is raped in Pakistan, she is required by that Pakistani invention called the Hodoud law to produce four witnesses to corroborate the crime. In other words, the rape has to be in the city square in the middle of the day for her to get a conviction. With no such proof, she can be accused of, and thrown into jail, for adultery.
Some Muslim feminists and enlightened scholars have been arguing that in Islam for a woman to be charged of adultery or fornication, the accuser needs to bring forth 4 witnesses who have seen the act. They point out that this was a way to protect women from false accusations. With no such witnesses, the accuser is meant to be punished.
But the imagination of one Pakistani dictator, with the help of the patriarchal minds of some religious scholars, twisted the law into a nightmarish one that punishes the victims of rape.
The half hearted measures of freeing the falsely imprisoned women is not enough. Abolish the unjust law and spend this life and the next making it up for the wronged women.
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