About the Report

There are a variety of contexts in which the empowerment of 

women in Pakistan can be considered, but none is more critical 

than law: How women’s legal rights are framed is fundamental 

to considering how best to advance women’s empowerment. 

After situating women’s legal rights in Pakistan, this Special 

Report reviews key features of recent legislation affecting 

women’s rights, explores the controversies surrounding this 

legislation, and elaborates on ongoing challenges to develop 

further legislation, particularly in light of opposition from 

Islamist groups. While the legal empowerment of women in 

Pakistan has seen progress, far more must be done to enable 

the laws passed to be implemented, bring Pakistan into 

conformity with the goals and ideals of the UN Committee on 

the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and 

secure an environment where women in Pakistan have viable 

choices in their own lives. 

About the Author

Dr. Anita M. Weiss is head of the Department of International 

Studies at the University of Oregon and is vice president of the 

American Institute of Pakistan Studies. Her research focuses 

on culture and development in Pakistan and social change 

and political transformations in Pakistan. Dr. Weiss is currently 

working on a forthcoming book Interpreting Islam, Modernity, 

and Women’s Rights in Pakistan and is co-editor (with S. 

Khattak) of Development Challenges Confronting Pakistan. She 

holds a BA from Rutgers University and an MA and PhD from 

the University of California at Berkeley. 

2301 Constitution Ave., NW • Washington, DC 20037 • 202.457.1700 • fax 202.429.6063

Special Report 305 May 2012

© 2012 by the United States Institute of Peace. 

All rights reserved.

Contents

Legal Reform and Women’s Empowerment 2

Historical Backdrop on Women’s Legal Rights 3

Women’s Rights Reenter the Legal Spotlight 5

New Laws and Women’s Rights Under the 

Current PPP Regime 8

Promoting Women’s Rights and Gender-Responsive

Policies and Institutions 10

Anita M. Weiss

Moving Forward with the 

Legal Empowerment of 

Women in Pakistan

Summary

•	 The history of laws affecting women’s rights and empowerment in Pakistan involves a complex pattern of advances and setbacks, with the state’s efforts to articulate a definition of 

women’s rights complicated by the need to balance divergent views on the place of women 

in Pakistani society. 

•	 After General Pervez Musharraf’s 1999 coup, a number of factors, including international 

perceptions of Pakistan, brought women’s rights, greatly curtailed by General Zia-ul-Haq’s 

Islamization project, to the fore. Most critical among the changes to women’s rights during this period was the 2006 revision to the Hudood Laws, resulting in the Protection of 

Women Act.

•	 The incumbent Pakistan People’s Party government has passed several important pieces 

of legislation continuing the progress for women’s empowerment made under Musharraf. 

These new laws focus on sexual harassment at the workplace, antiwomen practices, and 

acid throwing. Additionally, the National Commission on the Status of Women has recently 

achieved elevated status.

•	 Despite these advancements, new legislation is needed to address ongoing challenges such 

as women’s ability to control inherited land and human trafficking. If the Pakistani state 

is to make lasting improvements on these and other challenges facing the legal status of 

Pakistani women, it must find solutions that will not only benefit women in the country 

but create consensus among Pakistanis on the best and most achievable way to prioritize 

global rights for women while adhering to Islamic precepts. 

Consensus remains elusive in identifying what constitutes women’s rights and which legal 

reforms can best secure these rights in Pakistan. Ongoing political crises have important 

UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE www.usip.org

SPECIAL REPORT
2 

ramifications for promoting legislation to secure women’s rights, including banning forced 

marriages and marriage in exchange for vengeance, reversing discriminatory inheritance 

practices, and countering sexual harassment and domestic violence. The current Pakistan 

People’s Party (PPP) administration actively uses the rhetoric of advocating for women’s 

empowerment, but its track record in advancing these rights thus far remains limited. Many 

of the recent legal reforms associated with ensuring women’s rights clearly are counter to 

what the majority of Islamist political groups argue is necessary to secure them.

The empowerment of women in Pakistan can be considered in a variety of contexts, but 

none is more critical than law: how women’s legal rights are framed is fundamental to considering how best to advance women’s empowerment. After describing women’s legal rights 

in Pakistan, this report reviews key features of recent legislation affecting women’s rights, 

explores the controversies surrounding this legislation, and elaborates on ongoing challenges to develop further legislation, particularly in light of opposition from Islamist groups. 

Achievements thus far have qualitatively moved forward the legal empowerment of women 

in Pakistan, but far more must be done to enable the laws passed to be implemented, bring 

Pakistan into conformity with the goals and ideals of the UN Committee on the Elimination 

of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and create an environment in which all women 

in Pakistan, regardless of class, can make viable choices in their lives.

Legal Reform and Women’s Empowerment

The very concept of women’s rights elicits disparate, conflicting images in contemporary 

Pakistan. What constitutes women’s rights, who defines them, and where responsibility lies 

for ensuring them is highly contested, and there appears to be little room for compromise 

among the contending sides. To some extent, the tension has existed since Pakistan’s founding, but the past few years have seen the disagreements destabilize Pakistan’s political and 

social cohesiveness. The state has undertaken the difficult task of constructing culturally 

appropriate definitions of women’s rights as well as culturally acceptable mechanisms for 

implementing them, but with problematic results. Thus Pakistan persists as an amalgamation of often contradictory political enterprises, with two cohesive strands articulating 

divergent views on the rights of women and rhetoric to incorporate more laws and institutions derived from Islam.

The state’s efforts to define women’s rights are compelling, especially considering that 

the prevailing social climate—since at least 1979 if not before—has set the discourse within 

an Islamic framework. Pakistan’s traditional context, which encourages women to remain 

in the home, was strengthened under General Zia-ul-Haq’s government. His Islamization 

program, initiated in 1979, as well as the proliferation of deeni madaris (religious schools) 

throughout the country further excluded women from public life. Women found themselves 

in a weakened position and at a marked disadvantage in Pakistan’s national arena; the 

legal structure resulting from the Islamization program placed women in decidedly unequal 

political positions to men. On the other hand, 1979 also saw the formation of the Women’s 

Division—the precursor to the now-devolved Ministry of Women’s Development—further 

aggravating the contradictory stances in Pakistan regarding women’s rights. These institutions represent markedly different visions for women’s rights in Pakistan, and there has been 

no substantive internal debate to clarify the contradictions and articulate more clearly what 

women’s rights should look like. The argument over what constitutes acceptable roles and 

rights for women finds different constituencies deeply divided. The debate has been particularly pointed over the past few years as Pakistan has returned to reserving parliamentary 

seats for women, revised the Hudood Laws that resulted in the Protection of Women Act 

2006, and submitted and successfully defended its CEDAW report before the Division for the 

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily 

reflect the views of the United States Institute of Peace, 

which does not advocate specific policy positions.

To request permission to photocopy or reprint materials, 

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About the Institute

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, 

nonpartisan institution established and funded by Congress. 

Its goals are to help prevent and resolve violent conflicts, 

promote postconflict peacebuilding, and increase conflict 

management tools, capacity, and intellectual capital worldwide. The Institute does this by empowering others with 

knowledge, skills, and resources, as well as by its direct 

involvement in conflict zones around the globe.

Board of Directors

J. Robinson West (Chair), Chairman, PFC Energy •

George E. Moose (Vice Chairman), Adjunct Professor of 

Practice, The George Washington University • Judy Ansley,

Former Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Adviser under President George W. Bush • Eric Edelman,

Hertog Distinguished Practitioner in Residence, Johns Hopkins 

School of Advanced International Studies • Kerry Kennedy, 

President, Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human 

Rights • Ikram U. Khan, President, Quality Care Consultants, 

LLC • Stephen D. Krasner, Graham H. Stuart Professor 

of International Relations, Stanford University • John A. 

Lancaster, Former Executive Director of the National Council 

on Independent Living • Jeremy A. Rabkin, Professor, 

George Mason School of Law • Judy Van Rest, Executive Vice 

President, International Republican Institute • Nancy Zirkin,

Executive Vice President, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights

Members Ex Officio

Michael H. Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for 

Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor • James N. Miller, 

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University • Richard H. Solomon, President, 

United States Institute of Peace (nonvoting) 
 3

Advancement of Women at the United Nations in spring 2007. Meanwhile, terrorists continue 

to attack girls’ schools and seek to limit women’s actions and rights in very violent ways, 

and a recent decision of the federal Shariat Court declared four sections of the Protection 

of Women Act un-Islamic and therefore unconstitutional.1

Culture and religion are inextricably intertwined in many ways in Pakistan, and there is a 

great deal of confusion over where lines can be drawn between them. Members of the Sipahe-Sahaba, the Jama’at-i-Islami, the Pakistan Taliban,2 and many graduates of deeni madaris 

(religious schools) experience their Muslim identity as inseparable from other parts of their 

culture. Thus, things not in accordance with cultural norms, values, or practices are often 

considered as contradicting Islam. Alternatively, members of various women’s rights groups 

such as Shirkat Gah, Simorgh, and the Aurat Foundation engage in activist research addressing the rise in domestic violence, female education, and women’s political participation, 

questioning Islam’s jurisdictional space in the contemporary political sphere. These groups 

challenge notions that women’s rights need to be limited by Islamic injunctions.

The quandary over ensuring women’s rights in Pakistan is closely tied to the need for a 

consensus that women in Pakistan have a right, in the words of Moroccan sociologist Fatima 

Mernissi, to design a future instead of just growing old.3 Sometimes this means enforcing 

specific rights that women are presumed to enjoy in Pakistan because they are in accordance 

with sharia, such as retaining inherited land or divorcing abusive husbands, and establishing 

new rights to protect women from traditional practices such as swara and karo-kari,

4 domestic 

and public violence, and other practices through which women bear the consequences for 

wrongs committed by others. 

For the state, finding a way to balance these opposing political forces in Pakistan is 

challenging as it confronts its own progressive and Islamist oppositions. What is acceptable within Islam—especially pertaining to women and their rights—may not be acceptable within prevailing cultural constructs, and it is unclear which arena will win out as 

the defining social construct that frames women’s rights. This process, replete with its 

own contradictions, is still evolving. This report thus informs larger theoretical questions 

about the relation between gendered citizenry and the modern state, particularly in 

Muslim contexts, and how local transformations have global underpinnings. Pakistan is 

grappling with the construction of what can be termed gendered modernity, whereby the 

country becomes increasingly urban with greater numbers of educated women, many of 

whom are no longer willing to tolerate discriminatory social practices and laws—even as 

conservative religious groups aggressively promote seemingly irreconcilable stances on 

women’s rights. 

Ensuring rights is only possible when they are supported by laws and policies that enshrine 

and enforce them; hence the importance of examining Pakistan’s legal framework. It is in this 

domain, therefore, that this report concentrates. The most critical arenas impacting women’s 

legal rights in Pakistan today lies in developing legislation affecting women’s general rights 

as citizens and family members; women’s economic rights and opportunities to earn an 

income; ensuring women’s safety as they enter public domains; and establishing new laws 

to protect women from harmful and discriminatory traditional practices. Implementing the 

laws is obviously important, but implementation only becomes a concern once the laws exist. 

The crossroads Pakistan has reached is an important one. What has this elected government 

prioritized—and what can and will it prioritize—to promote women’s rights? 

Historical Backdrop on Women’s Legal Rights

At Pakistan’s founding in 1947, there was little legal distinction between the rights that 

women and men enjoyed, consistent with the larger contours of the state’s project to ensure 

The quandary over ensuring 

women’s rights in Pakistan is 

closely tied to the need for a 

consensus that women in Pakistan 

have a right . . . to design a future 

instead of just growing old.
4 

the country’s existence in the decade following partition. Ideological concerns such as those 

that rose to prominence in the 1970s and 1980s were a luxury Pakistan could not afford in 

the 1950s, when it faced threats to its survival. 

In Pakistan’s quest to become a recognized member of the international community, the 

state became party to a number of UN human rights instruments. One of the first was the 

1953 Convention on the Political Rights of Women.5 In the late 1950s, in the decision to ratify the UN Convention on the Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration 

of Marriage, the state, under Field Marshal Ayub Khan (1958–69), saw it as an opportunity 

to modify Pakistan’s legal framework and modernize the country. The task at hand—how to 

ensure women’s rights within the family—offered Pakistan a chance to craft distinct legislation. This opportunity resulted in the 1961 Muslim Family Laws Ordinance (MFLO). 

The MFLO gives economic and legal protection to women by regulating marriage and 

divorce and restraining polygamy. It requires registration of all marriages, the written permission of a man’s wife (or wives) to be presented before an arbitration council to decide if 

the man may marry again, the abolition of divorce by simple repudiation (talaq), and other 

safeguards for women in the event of divorce. With the MFLO, for the first time, the Pakistani state guaranteed women’s rights in the country through codified safeguards. Women 

activists were so jubilant following the passage of this legislation that they are said to have 

showered Ayub Khan’s car with rose petals when he came to Karachi.

The next major legislation affecting women’s legal rights in Pakistan was its 1973 constitution, which advanced women’s legal rights in the country on a number of fronts. It affirms 

in its fundamental rights and principles that the state is committed to eliminating exploitation. Article 25 (1) guarantees that all citizens are equal under the law and are entitled to 

equal protection of law; Article 25 (2) adds, “There shall be no discrimination on the basis 

of sex.” Article 27 prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, race, religion, or caste for 

government employment. Finally, Article 34 in the principles of policy section states that 

“steps shall be taken to ensure full participation of women in all spheres of national life,” 

and Article 38(a) adds that it is the responsibility of the state to “secure the well-being of 

the people, irrespective of sex, caste, creed, or race, by raising their standard of living.”6

Six years later, however, General Zia-ul-Haq’s restructuring of Pakistani national identity 

placed previously unimagined limitations on women’s personal and professional lives. On 

February 2, 1979, a year and a half after coming to power in a coup d’état, Zia declared 

that he would again delay elections to follow a higher mandate and ensure that all laws in 

Pakistan conformed with Islamic precepts and principles. Zia-ul-Haq’s introduction of an 

“Islamic system in the country”7 created a unique controversy, as the state never initiated 

a public discussion on what such a system would entail, and in doing so, superseded the 

constitutionally mandated Council of Islamic Ideology, which was tasked to define such a 

system. The Hudood Laws, heralded as the foundation of Zia’s new system but essentially 

just a new penal code, focused on enforcing punishments for distinct crimes explicitly 

outlined in sharia, such as theft of private property, the consumption of intoxicants, and 

adultery and fornication (zina). The most heated controversy concerned the last element, 

both because the ordinance governing it made no legal distinction between adultery and 

rape and because the structure of enforcement discriminated against women.8 Four years 

later, Zia’s government promulgated the Law of Evidence, which critics charged would disallow women from testifying at all in certain cases and would cause their testimony in other 

cases to be irrelevant unless another woman corroborated it. The restrictions on women’s 

testimony have been upheld only in cases concerning economic transactions, but the law 

broke new legal ground in Pakistan in that it clearly gave men and women different legal 

rights, underscoring that the state did not regard women and men as equal actors. 
 5

In the same year the government introduced its Islamization program, it also established 

the Women’s Division. The division’s creation is emblematic of the country’s struggle to 

resolve the conflict between the push toward modernity and the pull of redefined tradition: concurrent with codifying inequalities between men and women, the state actively 

began seeking means to improve women’s standard of living to be on par with international 

standards. The Women’s Division’s successor, the Ministry for Women’s Development, was 

instrumental in preparing Pakistan’s national report for the United Nations’ 1995 4th World 

Conference on Women in Beijing, as well as the follow-up project to implement the promises 

made in Beijing, entitled the National Plan of Action. It also helped prepare the Beijing +5 

Report for the May 2000 conference at UN headquarters and monitored Pakistan’s progress 

in implementing CEDAW.9

Pakistan began to turn its attention back to women’s rights in the 1990s, predominantly 

through actions aimed at an external audience. Pakistan became a state party to the UN 

Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990 and signed on to the 1993 Vienna Declaration 

recognizing women’s rights as human rights,10 the 1994 Cairo Population and Development 

conference’s Programme of Action, and then to the 1995 Platform for Action in Beijing. 

In 1994, when Pakistan was preparing its national report for the upcoming Beijing conference, Pakistan’s senate decided to establish a “high-powered commission” to review the 

country’s laws as “a step toward ending the grosser iniquities against women.” The resultant 

Report of the Commission of Inquiry for Women starkly condemned conditions that existed for 

women in Pakistan at that time:

There is a widespread misconception about the place Islam accords to women, which 

is not just a distortion spread in the West but it exists even among the intelligentsia 

in the Muslim World, including Pakistan. It is believed that Islam relegates women to 

an inferior status; it confines them inside the four walls of their homes; and it restrains 

them from taking up employment outside their homes or running their own business. 

This is wholly contrary to fact.11

Quite provocatively for that era, the report notes that many of the derogatory laws and 

customs in Pakistan are, unfortunately, 

justified in the name of Islam or have been introduced as Islamic laws when clearly 

they are retrograde customs and traditions, or ill-informed interpretations that bear 

no relation to the divine design. This distinction has to be clarified once and for all. 

Ambiguity allows obscurantist elements to re-open debate on settled fundamental 

principles, and gives rise to insecurity among women within and to an extremely 

adverse image abroad.12

During the governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif (1988–99), however, little 

was done to correct the ambiguities the commission identified. The absence of attention 

to women’s rights during Bhutto’s first term as prime minister—she was the first woman 

to serve in this role—disappointed many who had expected her to pass new legislation or 

repeal the Hudood Laws given her campaign promises. Political exigencies subordinated 

these women’s rights promises to other political maneuvers; Bhutto’s resolve to release 

women imprisoned under the Hudood Laws was limited to those already sentenced and did 

not affect the vast majority of women who were awaiting trial.13 

Women’s Rights Reenter the Legal Spotlight 

Women’s rights legislation came under new scrutiny following General Pervez Musharraf’s rise to 

power in a coup d’état in October 1999. Musharraf provided a glimpse of his future priorities by 

appointing a female activist as minister of state for education and the popular social activist 

Omar Asghar Khan to his cabinet. Shortly before Musharraf’s government was finally ready to 

file Pakistan’s first CEDAW report,14 al-Qaeda carried out its terrorist attacks on September 11, 

2001, and the war in Afghanistan began. While considering various strategies and priorities to 
6 

promote women’s rights in Pakistan, the state determined it had to take a step back and first 

articulate a national policy on women.15 In the latter half of 2001 and in 2002, it held provincial 

meetings with local stakeholders—government bureaucrats, elected officials, and activists—to 

create consensus on key themes to promote women’s empowerment. However, the language 

resembles the requirements of CEDAW, using the terminology of “creating enabling conditions,” 

which suggests that the Pakistani government’s concerns were more with its international 

reputation than with promoting substantive domestic transformation.

The provincial meetings affirmed that Pakistan did not condone discrimination against 

women at the constitutional level. However, agreement on the definition of what constitutes women’s rights appeared to end when some legislators attempted to introduce more 

specific, acceptable laws. As traditional views toward women’s roles in society were being 

championed in many domains—for example, in the Jama’at-i-Islami’s ongoing opposition to 

the 1961 Muslim Family Laws Ordinance—substantive changes were simultaneously occurring throughout the country in social practices, orientations, and values. Across class and 

regional lines, greater numbers of females were being educated, driving automobiles, entering the workforce, and standing for election in local contests. Conflicting images regarding 

the place and power of women were now having widespread social, economic, and political 

consequences. 

On March 8, 2002—International Women’s Day—Musharraf announced the establishment 

of an autonomous National Commission for Women and offered that, with the passage of 

time, Pakistan would gradually see an increase in the number of seats reserved for women in 

national and provincial assemblies. He noted the concrete steps his government had already 

taken to ensure the representation of women in the country. They had reserved 180 seats 

for women in national and provincial assemblies, a third of seats in local government elections likewise had been reserved, and now the National Commission for Women would work 

“for the protection of women’s rights in the country.”16 He also announced a three-month 

amnesty for women prisoners involved in minor crimes, which affected the large number 

of women detainees incarcerated under zina charges under the Hudood Laws.17 These laws 

were increasingly condemned internationally and were criticized in many reports on human 

rights violations. A U.S. Department of State report on Pakistan contended that

Women frequently are charged under the Hudood Ordinances for sexual misconduct, 

such as adultery. A Hudood law meant to deter false accusations is enforced weakly, and 

one human rights monitor claimed that 80 percent of adultery-related Hudood cases are 

filed without supporting evidence. In 1998, approximately one-third of the women in 

jails in Lahore, Peshawar, and Mardan were awaiting trial for adultery; that percentage 

likely remains accurate. Most women tried under the ordinance are acquitted, but the 

stigma of an adultery charge alone is severe.18

That being raped in Pakistan could itself be a crime hurt Pakistan’s global image 

immensely. Musharraf’s government passed laws to rectify this poor image, including the 

Criminal Law (Amendment) Act of 2004 (enforced in early 2005)—popularly referred to as 

the “honor killing law,”19 as it enhanced punishments for honor killings as a deterrence—

followed by the federal government’s efforts to modify the Hudood Laws by passing the Protection of Women Act 2006,20 placing the crimes of rape and adultery back into Pakistan’s 

penal code. The act of being raped was finally no longer a crime in Pakistan. 

The Protection of Women Act was the culmination of the women’s rights activism that 

had begun shortly after Zia introduced his Islamization program in early 1979. Reform of the 

Hudood Laws had been set in motion when Pakistan became party to the CEDAW Convention 

in 1996, pledging to review existing laws and social institutions to eliminate discrimination 

against women. But little was done until Musharraf’s government revived the issue of women’s empowerment as a key component of its policies to promote Pakistan’s progress. In all, 

Musharraf’s quotas for government seats amounted to 5 percent for women in government 

service (now 10 percent), 17 percent for women in national and provincial parliaments, and 
 7

33 percent for women in most tiers of local government. It formalized the National Commission on the Status of Women, sought national consensus on a National Policy on Women, 

and set in motion a series of reforms to promote women’s rights consistent with the global 

norms articulated in the CEDAW Convention.

Musharraf’s reforms are not surprising. In the 1960s, Ayub Khan’s vision was to modernize Pakistan, especially in promoting economic development and the writ of the state. 

Providing women with immutable rights—especially in marriage, divorce, inheritance, and 

custody—was essential to promoting this transformation. Zia-ul-Haq in the 1970s and 1980s 

symbolically moved Pakistan closer to the Middle East, not by prioritizing sharia, but by 

incorporating laws and practices that had not been a part of Muslim traditions in South Asia. 

South Asian women historically have had greater agency than their Arabian counterparts—

Hanafi fiqh (jurisprudence) ensures this more than the Hanbali and its Wahhabi derivative 

do—but in the state’s quest to find a basis of legitimacy for itself, it trod on the legal rights 

of women.21 In strengthening women’s rights, Musharraf’s goals were quite similar to Ayub 

Khan’s, but the work was done in a very different global context. 

First, as a global community, no nation can move forward and prosper without bringing 

its women along in the process, as Pakistan’s founder, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, 

averred in 1947. Educated women have smaller, healthier families and contribute economically, politically, and socially to their countries. Second, the pervasive globalization of the 

economy limits any one country’s ability to assert itself in external economic negotiations; 

the more a local economy can strengthen itself—which includes incorporating qualified 

women into the mix—the better its prospects when it looks outward. Finally, in the wake of 

September 11, Pakistan was forced to reconsider its place in the global community. 

Musharraf’s promotion of women’s rights thus can be seen as an effort more to improve 

Pakistan’s standing in the international community than to improve women’s legal standing 

in Pakistan. Musharraf’s government often used language that resembles the requirements 

of CEDAW, such as the aforementioned terminology of “creating enabling conditions.” 

Domestic friction, however, between the conflicting images regarding the place and power 

of women in Pakistani society complicated the process of developing specific and articulate 

laws capable of addressing international and domestic expectations. While Pakistan did not 

condone discrimination against women at the constitutional level, how could it set about 

and develop workable and acceptable laws?

The process to modify the Hudood Laws began in June 2006 when Musharraf’s government invited four “esteemed religious scholars” to develop recommendations to amend 

them.22 By the end of the month, the Council of Islamic Ideology had recommended 

the state rewrite the Hudood Laws “to conform with the intents of Qur’an, Sunnah, and 

Sharia”23 and incorporate the reframed law in Pakistan’s penal and criminal procedure 

codes. Musharraf then directed the council to draft a formal amendment to the Hudood 

Laws. In the following weeks, debates were held throughout the country with the general 

consensus that the laws had to be reformed, especially those concerning zina.

24 By early 

August, the federal cabinet approved draft amendments and set up a five-member ministerial committee to table it in the national assembly. A key priority was the removal of zina 

bil jabr (adultery without consent) entirely, and the movement of the provision regarding 

zina to Pakistan’s penal code. Provisions would be included to prevent malicious, baseless 

charges of zina, and if a charge filed would be found to be groundless (or if the woman 

was not found guilty), the charge of qazf (false accusation of zina) would then apply to the 

person making the charges. 

The federal government tabled the bill—the Protection of Women Bill 2006—on 

August 20, 2006. Opposition Islamist political parties, led by the Jama’at-i-Islami, lodged 

an immediate outcry against the reforms, charging that the Hudood Laws were a viable 

Domestic friction between the 

conflicting images regarding the 

place and power of women in 

Pakistani society complicated 

the process of developing specific 

and articulate laws capable of 

addressing international and 

domestic expectations. 
8 

Islamic document and that the reforms “would encourage adultery in society and would 

further increase obscenity, vulgarity, and western culture in Pakistan.”25 In response to the 

Jama’at’s protests, the national assembly charged that a select committee would review all 

thirty clauses of the bill; most political parties supported this, except for the Jama’at and its 

allies. Jama’at leaders claimed that the bill would cancel the Hudood Laws without providing 

any protection to women; through the bill, Pakistan was being Westernized; and Musharraf 

was “targeting the Islamic ideology, the Two Nation theory and the sovereignty of Quranic 

laws in the name of so-called enlightened moderation only to please the U.S.”26 Identity 

politics seem to have motivated these charges. Ultimately however, Musharraf prevailed, and 

the bill became law in November 2006.

A third initiative on women’s rights—the Prevention of Anti-Women Practices (Criminal 

Law Amendment) Bill 2006—sought to end the “social, political, and religious excesses 

against women” by banning practices such as forced marriages, marriage in exchange for 

vengeance, and deprivation of women’s inheritance. The national assembly decided to cease 

its review of the bill, first submitted in February 2007, two years later in spring 2009, a year 

after the PPP came to power. The assembly claimed that the bill was insufficient and poorly 

scripted and that other legislation would instead be forthcoming.

New Laws and Women’s Rights under the Current PPP Regime

Fall 2007 was a politically controversial period in Pakistan. Amid the antagonisms raised by 

the lawyer’s movement to reinstate Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry the previous summer,27 

renewed concerns about Musharraf’s constitutional legitimacy to contest the presidential 

election, and the return of both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, leaders of the two largest 

political parties in Pakistan in advance of the upcoming elections, new initiatives to promote women’s rights were set aside. On November 3, 2007, Musharraf issued a proclamation 

of emergency and suspended the 1973 constitution. This move proved to be his undoing, 

and he had resigned from the army by the end of the month (though he retained his position 

as president). Benazir Bhutto was assassinated the next month, on December 27, leaving a 

political void and postponing the January 2008 elections to February.

Ongoing political crises have important ramifications for promoting laws to ensure 

women’s rights. Many of the legal reforms of the late 2000s clearly counter what the majority of Islamist political groups argues is necessary to secure women’s rights. These groups 

would agree that studying the Qur’an and the sunnah and following the dictates of Islam 

more closely is valuable for women, and that anything more may expose them to ideas that 

are shirk (unacceptable beliefs) and disrupt households and the wider community. In interviews I conducted in Islamabad in 2008 at the al-Huda Centre, which provides education 

to women consistent with ideas that most political Islamist groups would support, its staff 

were quite clear about their views on protecting women’s rights.28 These rights include the 

right to love as a daughter and a wife, the right of inheritance, and the right to learn (to 

gain knowledge), which, as laid out in the hadith, is an obligation of every Muslim. These 

various groups emphasize reinforcing traditional norms of propriety and female subservience 

over debating women’s other rights within their communities.

In contrast, soon after coming to power in February 2008, the PPP government declared 

that it would promulgate a national domestic violence act and address sexual harassment at 

the workplace. Women’s rights activists were heartened when the national assembly passed 

The Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Bill 2009 on August 4, 2009, but were 

soon dismayed that the Senate did not take up the bill for discussion in a timely manner and 

allowed it to expire. Nearly three years later, in late February 2012, Senator Nilofar Bakhtiar 

reintroduced the identical bill, now termed the Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protec-
 9

tion) Act 2012, and it passed with support from all political parties represented in the upper 

house, including the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), which had earlier deferred the initial 

bill in the Senate that had caused it to lapse.29

The twenty-eight clauses of the bill are comprehensive. They state that domestic violence includes “all intentional acts of gender-based or other physical or psychological abuse 

committed by an accused against women, children, or other vulnerable persons, with whom 

the accused person is or has been in a domestic relationship.” To add some teeth to the bill, 

the clauses outline specific financial and penal penalties for committing acts of abuse, some 

of which are defined as assault in the Pakistan penal code, including “use of criminal force, 

criminal intimidation, economic abuse, entry into an aggrieved person’s residence without 

his or her consent, harassment, ‘mischief’ against property, physical abuse, stalking, sexual 

abuse, verbal and emotional abuse, insults or ridicule,” as well as “willful or negligent abandonment of the aggrieved person,” wrongful confinement, and “other repressive or abusive 

behavior ... where such conduct harms or may cause imminent danger or harm to the safety, 

health, or well-being of the aggrieved person.”30

Many longtime women’s rights activists celebrated the bill’s passage, echoing Khawar 

Mumtaz of Shirkat Gah when she said, 

The bill is significant. First, it acknowledges the incidence of domestic violence. 

Secondly, it recognizes that it can no longer be ignored or remain invisible. For too 

long, treating domestic violence as a private affair has given protection to perpetrators 

of violence and has led to victimization of women. The passage of the bill is a measure 

of success of women’s advocacy.31

The bill, however, only applies to a second act of violence, making it essentially legislation 

that results in a protection order when a first act of violence is reported. As Maliha Khan, 

another women’s rights activist in Pakistan, points out,

to effectively deal with this social evil, it is vital that an act of domestic violence be 

punished with imprisonment and/or fine at the first instance, not after a breach of 

protection orders.32

Even more problematic is a clause in the bill—section 25—inserted much later, shortly 

before the bill came up for the vote, stating that in the event of a “false accusation,” an 

individual claiming assault and unable to prove it could face imprisonment of up to six 

months and a hefty fine (PKR 50,000). The problematic nature of this clause lies in the basis 

of gendered power in Pakistan itself. Few women, regardless of economic status, will break 

through cultural ties and other social barriers and lodge a complaint of domestic violence in 

a court. For a woman who finds the wherewithal to do so, the threat that she may not be able 

to prove her case may serve as a powerful constraint. It is not just the fear of imprisonment, 

associated with a loss of honor, or having to pay a fine with funds she likely does not have, 

as most women in the country have limited access to capital. For most women, navigating 

the legal system is intimidating enough. The legislation thus speaks volumes regarding the 

difficulties in legally empowering women in Pakistan. It would be sufficient for a woman to 

lose her case if she could not prove the harassment, but this legislation places women in 

the precarious position of possibly going to jail as well. It would certainly encourage more 

women to lodge such complaints if they were allowed just to lose their cases.

The Council of Islamic Ideology criticized the initial bill in September 2009, citing it as “discriminatory” and offering police an opportunity to violate the “sanctity of home” and encourage divorce. I queried its then chairperson, Dr. Khalid Masud, as to the basis of the council’s 

dispute with the bill. He asserted that he personally found nothing in it that was antithetical 

to Islam, but some council members opposed it on political and ideological grounds.33

Despite the bill’s limitations, however, it is another stepping stone on the path of 

strengthening judicial safeguards to ensure women’s rights. Khawar Mumtaz underscored the 

importance of passing such legislation when she said, in reference to the bill, that

Few women, regardless of 

economic status, will break 

through cultural ties and other 

social barriers and lodge a 

complaint of domestic violence 

in a court. 
10 

laws are important for setting standards and defining what is acceptable in society. 

Whatever fate awaits the new law will also depend on how much people turn to it 

for protection. But once it is in the statute books, the option of invoking it becomes 

available.34

There is evidence of this in Pakistan’s preparing to file its CEDAW report by finally revising 

the draconian Hudood Laws. The act of being raped is no longer a crime in Pakistan. While 

the law’s modification has neither prevented rapes from occurring or suddenly transformed 

inflexible perceptions of women as a man’s property—perhaps this is too much to expect 

in such a short time—it has lifted the constraints on women of charging perpetrators 

with rape.

A second initiative, unanimously passed in the national assembly on January 21, 2010, 

and signed into law eight days later, is the Protection against Harassment for Women at the 

Workplace Act 2009. This law makes provisions to protect women against sexual harassment 

in public spaces. The need for such protection is underscored by a 2007 survey showing that 

78 percent of working women had been sexually harassed on the job; the figure soared to 

91 percent among domestic workers.35 Probably every Pakistani woman has been harassed 

at least once in public.36 Encouragingly, the legislation further requires all public and 

private organizations to establish an internal code of conduct at the workplace, with complaint and appeals mechanisms aimed “at establishing a safe, working environment, free 

of intimidation and abuse, for all employees.”37 It includes penalties for management not 

instituting such a code: they can be prosecuted and fined up to PKR 100,000. The accompanying amendment to Pakistan’s penal code—Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2009—recognizes that sexual harassment occurs in public places such as markets and parks as well as 

in workplaces and in the home, and occurs outside of stipulated employment hours. While 

the first clause addressing insulting modesty is explicitly for women,38 the second clause is 

not gender specific.39 This may signal a societal shift on thinking about sexual harassment 

because legal assurances and penalties for breaking the law now exist that can support 

awareness campaigns about sexual harassment and educate women about their rights to 

prosecute this kind of discrimination and persecution.40

Two additional recent bills modifying the Pakistan penal code and the code of criminal 

procedure have brought further progress in legally empowering women in Pakistan. Passed 

in December 2011, the first rectifies the abandonment of the Anti-Women Practices Bill in 

2009 by listing specific punishable offenses against compelling women to marry, especially 

“in consideration of settling a civil dispute or criminal liability,” including wanni and swara, 

as well as depriving women from inheriting property, facilitating a woman marrying the 

Qur’an, and other “anti-women practices.” The second bill, commonly referred to as the 

acid-throwing legislation, specifically cites penalties for causing harm or disfigurement by 

using a “corrosive substance,” punishable by long imprisonment and fines of up to a million 

rupees.41 Another act of legislation promises to make perhaps the greatest difference of all 

to effect women’s rights and empower them in the future: the elevation of the National 

Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW) in early February 2012. The NCSW has been 

granted greater administrative autonomy to review laws, make recommendations, liaise with 

provincial governments, and overall gain greater scope, funding, and effect in redressing 

violations of women’s rights.

As important as the recent developments in strengthening women’s rights are, however, 

the social costs of militarism and extensive violence and destruction that Pakistan has 

been experiencing is foundational to any discussion of the role of legal reform in ensuring 

women’s rights. As well as polarizing the country, the situation threatens to undermine 

state policies concerned with eliminating discrimination against women and the small gains 

in empowering women made thus far. The Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan42 and other militant 

groups are pressuring Pakistan’s government to compromise on women’s rights in return 

The Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan 

and other militant groups 

are pressuring Pakistan’s 

government to compromise 

on women’s rights. . . . Few 

people are able and willing to 

champion the cause of women’s 

rights in Pakistan today and 

pressure the federal government 

not to capitulate to such 

irredentist demands.
 11

for political accommodations. Few people are able and willing to champion the cause of 

women’s rights in Pakistan today and pressure the federal government not to capitulate to 

such irredentist demands.

Promoting Women’s Rights and Gender-Responsive Policies 

and Institutions

It is one thing for states to pass laws to promote women’s rights; the true test of commitment to rectifying inequities and injustice comes with those laws’ implementation. Pakistan 

is navigating the first phase with mixed results. Women no longer risk being charged with 

a crime for being raped, and efforts are under way to ensure that women can travel to and 

be employed at workplaces without major harassment. But terrorists continue to attack 

girls’ schools and seek to limit women’s actions and rights in very violent ways. Women 

now have the right to go to a court to contest custody of children, but powerful, wealthy 

ex-husbands still invariably prevail. In a surprising turn of events, the Federal Shariat Court 

recently declared four sections of the Protection of Women Act un-Islamic and therefore 

unconstitutional.

Drafting new legislation to ensure women’s economic rights and opportunities to earn 

an income will certainly be controversial, as the issues of women’s mobility and economic 

self-sufficiency remain highly contested social terrains. Women’s economic participation in 

Pakistan is among the lowest in the world for a variety of reasons. I learned firsthand many 

of the challenges confronting poor women in Pakistan to earn an income and help feed their 

families when I conducted field research two decades ago for my book Walls within Walls, 

chronicling the lives of working women in the Old City of Lahore.43 These women taught me 

then that many of them had to work within their homes, hiding the fact that they earned 

money doing piecework because local mores would condemn their husbands if others knew 

they were living off the labor of their wives’ hands. 

In addition, when women are entitled to inherit land, it often does not result in a title 

in their name and in land that they control. This reality seems to be particularly acute for 

uneducated women, a group legally referred to in Pakistan as pardanashin ladies.44 New 

draft legislation aimed at rectifying the inequalities women face in retaining inherited land 

is now being written. This should extend the demarcation of women’s rights of inheritance 

as well as their right to buy and maintain property in their own names. It is ironic that it 

remains a problem in Pakistan for banks to accept the signature of a female witness in financial transactions—a result of the Law of Testimony—when the head of Pakistan’s central 

bank was, until recently, a woman.45

That legislation strengthening women’s rights under way now is important because courts 

are beginning to reverse a number of earlier rulings that had held up the loss of land by illiterate, ill-experienced women. Case law from the past three decades, particularly in this century, 

has suddenly begun to ensure the rights of pardanashin women.46 Many of these cases are 

being fought by the women’s descendants for reinstatement of land that had been in her name. 

Even “semi-illiterate” women have been deemed entitled “to the protection of law governing 

such ladies” because of the “disabilities which are suffered by people living a life in seclusion” 

unless it can be proven that “she understood [the] nature and effect” of her actions in signing 

away land.47 By reversing a wrong—that those conversant with the legal system could take 

advantage of women who had never engaged with the system before—the courts are initiating an exciting orientation toward the provision of women’s economic rights. These cases, 

however, take years to contest, as judges’ caseloads are huge. Ironically, to rectify the injustice 

of a pardanashin woman’s land having been taken away from her, her descendants must be both 

legally savvy and financially able to navigate the judicial system.

Women no longer risk being 

charged with a crime for 

being raped, and efforts are 

under way to ensure that 

women can travel to and be 

employed at workplaces 

without major harassment.
12 

But judicial advances are the work of individual jurists; there is no new institutional 

initiative within the legal system to ensure women’s economic rights, aside from various 

studies undertaken by the National Commission on the Status of Women and their subsequent recommendations. The Report of the Working Group on Women, Development & 

Empowerment for Pakistan’s draft Tenth Five-Year Plan (now shelved indefinitely) proceeds 

from a rights-based discourse when it argues that

the inability of the nondemocratic state to deliver [women’s] rights have weakened its 

legitimacy and allowed informal, custom-based systems to thrive. Meanwhile, nonstate 

actors have filled in the vacuum with their own regressive, discriminatory ideologies. 

. . . There is an urgent need to reengineer the overall national policies, institutions and 

their cultures, and the national budget so that these are more gender responsive.48

This critical initiative must focus on the courts themselves. The executive and legislative branches of government can promulgate laws, but mechanisms to implement those 

laws must be readily available in the judiciary, especially in the lower courts. Ideally, a 

separate court should be established within the judiciary for family law cases involving 

women, notably to adjudicate matrimony, custody, guardianship, and disinheritance. The 

judiciary must recognize that it is against the public interest for a woman who owns land to 

divest her interest in the land to a male relative. Enabling a woman to win a custody case 

is irrelevant if her children are grown up by the time the case is heard; today, it is common 

for such cases to linger for years.

The issue here is the availability of a forum. There are not enough judges and no state 

venues outside of what already exists. Judges’ caseloads must be reduced so they can 

attend to such cases in a reasonable period. A special fund could be established to support 

a legal aid system for addressing this issue. These funds need not go to the government 

of Pakistan; they could be available to women who must learn to navigate Pakistan’s legal 

system for the first time.

In addition, awareness of new laws must be raised to improve their enforcement. There is 

a dire need for public information campaigns informing women of their rights under the new 

sexual harassment legislation as well as other laws. Subordinate judiciary judges also must 

know about the new legislation affecting women’s rights in Pakistan. Finally, the reforms 

must be a separate, mandatory topic at the Federal Judicial Academy so all new judges are 

aware of them.

 Far more remains to be done, including addressing the problem of human trafficking. 

Human rights groups have commended Pakistan for passing its Prevention and Control of 

Human Trafficking Ordinance in 2002, but the state primarily has paid attention to workers 

smuggled abroad illegally for employment and on children trafficked as camel racers to the 

Middle East. There has been scant attention paid to the trafficking of women for prostitution. Advocates argue that while the Women’s Protection Act could be used to prosecute 

traffickers, laying out clear safeguards is essential to ensure that women do not live in fear 

of kidnapping and trafficking for either internal or external prostitution. Amendments to 

Pakistan’s penal code have prohibited “sexual advances,” but do not include sexual trafficking, a concern in the larger arena of harassment that must be addressed.49

The above arguments can be encapsulated in the following recommendations for the 

Pakistani government:

•	 Address ways to implement recently passed laws that strengthen women’s rights.

•	 Draft new legislation to ensure women’s economic rights and opportunities to earn an 

income.

•	 Ensure that women can control inherited land.

•	 Improve knowledge and enforcement of laws.

•	 Develop new legislation explicitly addressing the trafficking of women for prostitution.
 13

Ways must be found to bring together advocates of Pakistan’s two contradictory political 

enterprises—prioritizing global rights for women and a closer adherence to Islamic precepts—to find accommodations that not only benefit women in Pakistan but create a 

consensus among Pakistanis that has eluded the nation thus far. Moving further in legally 

empowering women in Pakistan today is a necessary condition to secure a healthy, prosperous, and viable future for the country overall. 
14 

Notes

The author is deeply indebted to the many people who have kindly met with her in Pakistan over many years and 

shared their views and insights about the challenges of reforming laws and promoting women’s empowerment in 

Pakistan. In particular, great thanks to Saba Gul Khattak and Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb for their comments and 

support.

1. On December 22, 2010, the Federal Shariat Court declared sections 11, 25, 28, and 29 of this act in violation of 

Article 203DD of the constitution. The revised act is at www.pakistani.org/pakistan/legislation/2006/wpb.html.

2. The Sipah-e-Sahaba is a Jhang-based Sunni Islamist militant organization; the Jama’at-i-Islami is the oldest 

Islamist political party in Pakistan; the Pakistan Taliban, officially the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, is a conglomeration 

of numerous distinct Islamist militant groups, most of which are based in the northwest areas of Pakistan.

3. Fatima Mernissi, Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society, revised edition (Bloomington, 

IN: Indiana University Press, 1987), xii.

4. Swara is the practice of forcing a girl to be married as a kind of blood money payment. Karo-kari refers to honor 

killings, specifically in Sindh province.

5. I have elaborated further on women’s legal rights in Pakistan in the country’s first few decades in Anita M. 

Weiss, “Interpreting Women’s Rights: The Dilemma over Eliminating Discrimination against Women in Pakistan,” 

International Sociology 18, no. 3 (September 2003), 581–601.

6. All references are from Government of Pakistan, The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973, edition 

published by the National Assembly of Pakistan, 1993.

7. Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, “Introduction of Islamic Laws: Address to the Nation,” Islamabad, February 10, 1979, 3.

8. I have written extensively on this. See, e.g., “Women’s Position in Pakistan: Sociocultural Effects of Islamization, 

Asian Survey 25, no. 8 (August 1985), 863–80; Anita M. Weiss, ed., Islamic Reassertion in Pakistan: The Application 

of Islamic Laws in a Modern State, (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986; republished in Pakistan by 

Vanguard Press, 1987); “The Consequences of State Policy for Women in Pakistan,” in Myron Weiner and Ali 

Banuazizi, eds., The Politics of Social Transformation in Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse 

University Press, 1994), 412–44; and more recently, “Islamic Influence on Sociolegal Conditions of Pakistani 

Women,” in Daniela Bredi, ed., Islam in South Asia (Rome: Istituto per l’Oriente, 2004), 307–28, Monograph of 

Oriente Moderno New Series, 23, 1 (in Italian and English).

9. The Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women entered into force in 1981. 

Pakistan, under Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif, and Pervez Musharraf, was reluctant to file its mandatory report to 

the UN CEDAW Committee, due soon after it became a state party in March 1996. It was supposed to report on 

its efforts to eliminate discrimination against women, but it was soon apparent that without modulating some 

of the laws passed during Zia’s regime—such as criminalizing the act of being raped by accusing a victim of 

adultery—the international community would harshly condemn any report that it produced.

10. United Nations General Assembly, “Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action,” July 12, 1993, www.un.org/

ecosocdev/geninfo/populatin/icpd.htm.

11. Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Women Development, Social Welfare, and Special Education, Report of the 

Commission of Inquiry for Women, August 1997, ii.

12. Ministry of Women Development, Report, xi.

13. Asia Watch and the Women’s Rights Project, Double Jeopardy: Police Abuse of Women in Pakistan (New York: 

Human Rights Watch, 1992), 39. 

14. I had seen different versions of Pakistan’s draft CEDAW Report by that time. On September 7, 2001, the thensecretary of the Ministry for Women’s Development told me that the CEDAW report was in the midst of being 

proofread and she expected it to be submitted shortly.

15. This step was shared with me on many occasions by various people in Musharraf’s government, including the 

secretary and the minister of the Ministry for Women’s Development.

16. “Plan to Better Women’s Lot,” Dawn, March 8, 2002, http://archives.dawn.com/2002/03/08/top4.htm.

17. The term zina, broadly referring to adultery, encompasses unlawful sexual intercourse, illicit sex, or fornication 

outside of marriage. From Rudolph Peters, Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law: Theory and Practice from the 

Sixteenth to the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 

18. U.S. Department of State, “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2001: Pakistan,” Bureau of Democracy, 

Human Rights, and Labor, March 4, 2002, 10, www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/sa/8237.htm.

19. A fuller discussion of this act can be found in Zubeida Mustafa, “A Long Way to Go,” Dawn, May 31, 2007, www.

dawn.com/weekly/review/archive/070531/review2.htm.

20. Protection of Women (Criminal Laws Amendment) Act 2006, www.pakistani.org/pakistan/legislation/2006/wpb.html.

21. Fiqh, Islamic jurisprudence or legal doctrine, varies between the four Sunni schools of jurisprudence: Hanafite 

(regionally tied to former Ottoman Empire territory), Hanbalite (Saudi Arabia), Malakite (North Africa and 

Islamic Spain), and Shafi’ite (Middle East and Indonesia). Hanafi jurisprudence is generally more liberal in its 

interpretations, accepting ijma (consensus) and qiyas (analogical reasoning) as sources of law, while Hanbali 

jurisprudence only accepts the Qur’an and sunnah. 

22. These scholars were Mufti Muneebur Rehman, chairman of the Ruet-i-Hilal Committee; Maulana Abdul Malik, 

an MMA MNA; Javed Ahmad Ghamdi, director of the Idara al Mawrid and a member of the Council of Islamic 

Ideology; and Dr. Tufail Hashmi, author of Hudood Ordinance in the Light of the Book and Sunnah.

23. As reported by Anwar Mansuri, “CII wants Hudood law reformed,” Dawn, June 28, 2006, www.dawn.com/

2006/06/28/nat1.htm.

24. An editorial in Dawn reported that because of the zina ordinance (in the Hudood Laws), the number of women 

imprisoned rose drastically. It noted that there were seventy women imprisoned in Pakistan in 1979; by 1988, 

there were six thousand, 80 percent of whom were imprisoned under the zina ordinance. In 2002, 80 percent 

of adultery-related Hudood cases were filed without supporting evidence. Maheen A. Rashdi “Amendments to 

Hudood Ordinances” editorial, Dawn, 14 August 2006, www.dawn.com/2006/08/14/ed.htm.

25. This quote by MMA MNA Razia Aziz captures the tone of rhetoric used by MMA members once the Hudood reforms 

were tabled in the National Assembly. See discussion of this by Ahmed Hassan “PML-MMA panel to discuss draft 

of Hudood bill,” Dawn, 27 August 2006, www.dawn.com/2006/08/27/local20.htm.
 15

26. This was stated by the Islamist opposition on 4 September 2006, as reported in Raja Asghar “Amended Bill on 

Women’s Rights Presented to NA: Protest Walkout by MMA, PML-N” Dawn, 5 September 2006, www.dawn.com/

2006/09/05/nat9.htm.

27. In March 2007, Musharraf suspended Chief Justice Chaudhry when Chaudhry refused to resign under pressure 

from Musharraf, ostensibly over Chaudhry’s refusal to use the Supreme Court to guarantee Musharraf another 

five-year mandate to rule. Chaudhry’s suspension, in combination with Musharraf’s implementation of emergency 

rule, galvanized Pakistan’s lawyers. Over the next two years hundreds of lawyers and opposition politicians were 

arrested for participating in the resulting pro–rule of law lawyer’s movement. In March 2009, popular support for 

Chaudhry peaked, with thousands coming out to greet him on the road between Islamabad and Lahore. The PPP 

government caved to this public pressure and restored Chaudhry as chief justice.

28. While staff at al-Huda agreed to meet with me, we also agreed that the interviews, conducted in early November 

2008 at the al-Huda headquarters in Islamabad, would be anonymous. I conducted the interviews as part of a 

larger project, Interpreting Islam, Modernity, and Women’s Rights in Pakistan, still in progress.

29. See Amir Wasim, “Domestic Violence No More a Private Affair,” Dawn, February 21, 2012, www.dawn.com/

2012/02/21/domestic-violence-no-more-a-private-affair-2.html.

30. See Raja Asghar, “National Assembly Bill Outlaws Domestic Violence,” Dawn, August 5, 2009, http://archives.

dawn.com/archives/37827

31. See Zofeen Ebrahim, “Domestic Violence Bill Draws Mixed Reactions,” Inter Press Service News Agency, September 7, 

2009, http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48354.

32. Ebrahim, “Domestic Violence Bill.”

33. Personal conversation, Ann Arbor, MI, September 12, 2009.

34. Ebrahim, “Domestic Violence Bill.”

35. The results of the survey, conducted by the Alliance Against Sexual Harassment at Workplaces, is reported in 

“Sexual Harassment of Women on Rise in Pakistan,” Daily News & Analysis, December 3, 2007, www.dnaindia.com/

world/report_sexual-harassment-of-women-on-rise-in-pakistan_1136955.

36. Huma Yusuf, “Issues beyond Harassment,” Dawn, November 15, 2009, www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/

dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/editorial/issues-beyond-harassment-519.

37. Statement of Objects and Reasons, draft legislation, Protection from Harassment Act 2008 and Code of Conduct 

for Protection against Harassment at the Workplace Schedule.

38. This clause (i), amending Section 509 of the Pakistan penal code, 1869 (Act XLV of 1960) reads: “Whoever—

intending to insult the modesty of any woman, utters any word, makes any sound or gesture, or exhibits any 

object, intending that such word or sound shall be heard, or that such gesture shall be seen, by such woman, or 

intrudes upon the privacy of such woman.”

39. This second clause (ii) of the amendment reads: “Whoever—conducts sexual advances, or demands sexual favours 

or uses written or verbal communication or physical conduct of a sexual nature which intends to annoy, insult, 

intimidate, or threaten the other person.”

40. Yusuf, “Issues beyond Harassment.”

41. Acid Control and Acid Crime Prevention Bill 2010, www.na.gov.pk/uploads/documents/1302318969_628.pdf.

42. I am using this term to include the gamut of Islamist political groups that have taken up arms against the 

government of Pakistan in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in recent years.

43. Anita M. Weiss, Walls within Walls: Life Histories of Working Women in the Old City of Lahore (Boulder, CO: Westview 

Press, 1992); 2nd edition with a new preface published by Oxford University Press, 2002.

44. A pardanashin, or woman under the veil, often lives her life in seclusion, having little to do with men aside from 

her immediate male family members and only leaving the home wearing a body veil. A pardanashin’s subsequent 

reliance on male interlocutors heightens her social and legal vulnerabilities within the context of ineffective legal 

structures. 

45. Dr. Shamshad Akhtar completed her three-year term as the governor of the State Bank of Pakistan in January 

2009, and has been succeeded by Mr. Saleem Raza. 

46. Among the numerous cases that exist, see Khushi Muhammad and Two others vs. Jannat Bibi 2004 CLC 1747 

(Lahore), decided on April 19, 2004, and Ch. Muneer Hussain vs. Mst. Wazeeran Mai PLD 2005 Supreme Court 

658, decided on April 6, 2005. 

47. As cited in the Legal Decision of Ch. Muneer Hussain vs. Mst. Wazeeran Mai PLD 2005 Supreme Court 658, decided 

on April 6, 2005.

48. “Draft Report of the Working Group on Women, Development & Empowerment,” Tenth Five-Year Plan 2010–15, 

January 2010.

49. A seminar held in Peshawar on illegal migration, human trafficking, and smuggling raised the demand to amend 

the human trafficking ordinance. See “Government Urged to Amend Law against Human Trafficking,” The News,

February 24, 2010, www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=225892&Cat=7&dt=2/25/2010.
Of Related Interest

•	 Women and War: Power and Protection in the 21st Century edited by Kathleen Kuehnast, 

Chantal de Jonge Oudraat, and Helga Hernes (2011)

•	 How Pakistan Negotiates with the United States: Riding the Roller Coaster by Howard B. 

Schaffer and Teresita C. Schaffer (2011)

•	 Lessons from Women’s Programs in Afghanistan and Iraq by Kathleen Kuehnast, Manal Omar, 

Steven E. Steiner and Hodei Sultan (Special Report, March 2012)

•	 Who Controls Pakistan’s Security Forces? by Shuja Nawaz (Special Report, December 2011)

•	 Gender, Conflict and Peacebuilding by Kimberly Theidon and Kelly Phenice with Elizabeth 

Murray (Peaceworks, September 2011)

•	 Reforming Pakistan’s Police and Law Enforcement Infrastructure: Is It Too Flawed to Fix? by 

Hassan Abbas (Special Report, February 2011)

•	 The Other Side of Gender: Including Masculinity Concerns in Conflict and Peacebuilding by 

Kathleen Kuehnast and Nina Sudhaker (Peace Brief, January 2011)

United States 

Institute of Peace

2301 Constitution Ave., NW

Washington, DC 20037

www.usip.org

An online edition of this and related 

reports can be found on our Web site 

(www.usip.org), together with additional 

information on the subject.