[Current Affairs] December 16,2020 Top Pakistan Current Affairs for FPSC Test Preparation

2. President signs anti-rape ordinance

What’s going on? President Arif Alvi signed a new anti-rape ordinance into law. The govt has to take the ordinance to parliament within 120 days. If or when parliament approves the ordinance, it will be permanently passed into law. In the meantime, the ordinance will still be valid for 120 days. The law’s key purpose is to speed up convictions and enforce tougher punishments.

The ordinance will also:

• Introduce a national sex offenders register.

• Punish repeat offenders with chemical castration. Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan proposed chemical castration as a punishment for rapists on several occasions. In a previous draft of the ordinance, it said convicts have to give their consent to be chemically castrated. However, that will actually be up to a judge. The time frame for chemical castration could range from six months to a lifetime.

• Protect the identity of survivors. Revealing their identity will be a punishable offense.

• Create special fast-track courts so trials of alleged rapists wrap up within four months. This expedited system is supposed to ensure legal cases involving sexual abuse against women and children don’t keep lingering. Usually, rape cases have the tendency to drag on for years because of flawed investigations. Deficiencies in existing laws also make it harder for rape survivors to come forward.

• Govt Anti-Rape Crisis Cells will accelerate the processing of legal cases. These special govt cells will also have the power to make sure medical examinations of rape survivors are conducted within six hours. A lack of medical evidence is often one of the reasons people in Pakistan are acquitted in rape cases.

• Police or govt officials who show negligence while investigating rape cases could face a three-year prison sentence.

Something to know: Rape is already a criminal offense in Pakistan, punishable by death or imprisonment.

Looking ahead: Rights activists generally welcomed the law, but are still calling for improved policing and prosecution. Pakistan’s notoriously low conviction rate for rape is around 3%. Sadia Bokhari from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said laws actually have to be implemented in order to deter rapists. Another lawyer named Hamid Khan said the castration punishment is cruel, unconstitutional and un-Islamic. Instead, Khan thinks the govt should strictly enforce existing laws against rape.

The bottom line: Even though the ordinance is trying to crack down on rape and sexual violence in Pakistan, some people are not 100% on board with the law.