The Supreme Court’s (SC) decision to uphold the acquittal of five men in the Mukhtaran Mai case will dissuade rape survivors from approaching courts to seek justice, argued War Against Rape (WAR) Director Sarah Zaman on Thursday following a meeting of civil society groups and social activists to chalk out a the future course of action.
“Mukhtaran Mai was such a high-profile case, a symbolic case. A verdict in her favour would have sent a very powerful message, that rape will not be tolerated. But with this verdict, many rape survivors will now be dissuaded. Any rape survivor will now think a thousand times before lodging a complaint; if Mukhtaran Mai couldn’t get justice, they will claim there is little hope for them,” Zaman told Pakistan Today.
The 14 men that Mukhtaran Mai had claimed were involved in her rape included Faiz Bukhsh Mastoi, Ramzan Pachar, Ghulam Fareed Mastoi, Allah Ditta Mastoi, Hazoor Bakhsh, Aslam, Nazar Hussain, Ghulam Qasim, Hafiz Rasool Bakhsh, Ghulam Hussain, Mohammad Khalil, Abdul Khaliq, and two men with the same name, Fayyaz Hussain. of the orginally nominated men, only Abdul Khaliq was punished – that too, a commuted sentence to life imprisonment.
“While this was a symbolic case, the verdict is not surprising. This is a classic judgment, it happens in most cases, if not all, and undermines the entire criminal justice system,” she said.
The mood of the civil society meeting organised by the Aurat Foundation, understandably, was one of anger and disappointment. There was, however, a sense of accelerating the struggle against rape. “Mukhtaran Mai has decided not to opt for a review, and we also feel that a review will be pointless. The same people will give the same verdict using the same premises. It is high time that the law is reviewed,” Zaman said.
The WAR director cited Section 151-4 of the Law of Evidence, which hand an accused man the opportunity to cast a rape survivor as a woman of “bad moral character” and go scot-free. “Delays in lodging cases are used against women; legal officers believe that a woman in either a liar or concocting a story. There have been cases when the MLO says there is good evidence that a woman was raped, but the rapist manages to go scot-free,” she said.
“The prevalent culture and mindset is that women lie in courts and are not trustworthy. Those who are deemed ‘trustworthy’ are those who remain mum after being raped, and not compromise her honour,” Zaman said.
“There is a need for turning the system into a foolproof one, make people accountable for what they do. We can’t depend on one or two men to side with a rape survivor, we need to evaluate the lacunas in laws. If Section 151-4 is repealed, it’ll change rape cases,” she said.
