Pakistan Court Releases Rapist Following Agreement That He Will Marry The Victim.
According to an attorney, a rapist was freed from prison in Pakistan after he wed his victim in a deal arranged by an elders’ council in the northwest of the nation.
Rights advocates are incensed by the ruling, which they claim legitimizes sexual assault against women in a nation where most rapes are not reported.
In May, a lower court in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province’s Buner district handed down a life sentence to Dawlat Khan, 25, for raping a lady who was deaf.
After the Peshawar High Court approved a settlement reached outside of court by the family of the rape victim, he was freed from jail on Monday.
AFP was informed by Amjad Ali, Khan’s attorney, that “the rapist and the victim are from the same extended family.”
After a deal was reached with the aid of the neighborhood jirga (traditional council), he continued, “both families have patched up.
After his unmarried victim gave birth to a kid earlier this year, Khan was apprehended after a paternity test revealed he was the child’s biological father.
Since women are frequently treated as second-class citizens in Pakistan, rape cases are notoriously difficult to prosecute.
The Asma Jahangir Legal Aid Cell, a group that offers legal aid to at-risk women, claims that less than 3% of cases that go to trial result in a conviction.
Due to the related societal shame, few cases are recorded, and the poor conviction rates are also impacted by mistakes made during investigations, poor prosecutorial tactics, and out-of-court settlements.
Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir, a lawyer and human rights activist, described the Peshawar court ruling as “essentially the court’s support of rape and facilitation of rapists and rape mindset.”
She told AFP that “it is against the fundamental values of justice and the law of the state which does not recognize such an arrangement.”
The decision “appalled,” according to the Pakistani Human Rights Commission.
The group tweeted that rape is a non-compoundable offense that cannot be remedied by a weak marriage “compromise.”
In rural Pakistan, village councils made up of local elders called jirgas or panchayats are created, bypassing the judicial system even though their decisions have no legal weight.
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