{"title":"Win the Battle, Lose the War?: Strategies for Repealing the Zina Ordinance in Pakistan","authors":"Beenish Riaz","doi":"10.1515/mwjhr-2020-0009","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In 1979, following a military coup, President Zia-ul-Haq sought to foment his power by ‘Islamizing’ Pakistan. Among other policies, he enacted the Hudood Ordinances to codify classical Islamic fiqh on criminal law, including the controversial Zina Ordinance (“Ordinance”) which criminalizes sex outside of marriage. Shortly after its passing, the Ordinance led to the unjust incarceration of thousands of low-income women across the country. Decrying the law as violence against women, human rights supporters around the world demanded reform. Finally, in 2006, Pakistan passed the Protection of Women Act (PWA) that amended the Ordinance, rendering the law procedurally toothless. Still, reforms left the substance of the Ordinance intact, giving men license to take the law into their own hands with effective impunity, leading to a rise in honor killings. Given the need for repeal of the Ordinance, this paper looks to lessons learned from the successes and failures of the 2006 reform to propose a strategy for the future. The 2006 reform adopted an apologetic ‘pragmatic reformist’ approach, building a coalition of conservative Islamists and secularists behind an incremental policy shift. This paper proposes that for a more substantive change that is still effective, the women’s rights movement should shift away from the purely secular or purely Islamic approach to espouse secularism and human rights but using an Islamic rationale, shifting societal attitudes from within the tradition. Doing this, I echo arguments made by reformist-activists Abdullahi An’Naim and Ziba Mir-Hosseini among others as well as adopt the approach of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the High Courts, and the Federal Shariat Court (FSC) themselves in their attempts to reconcile Pakistan’s constitutional commitments to both human rights and Islamic law. Such a strategy, I posit, is slow but both effective and long-lasting.","PeriodicalId":35445,"journal":{"name":"Muslim World Journal of Human Rights","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/mwjhr-2020-0009","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Muslim World Journal of Human Rights","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1515/mwjhr-2020-0009","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Abstract In 1979, following a military coup, President Zia-ul-Haq sought to foment his power by ‘Islamizing’ Pakistan. Among other policies, he enacted the Hudood Ordinances to codify classical Islamic fiqh on criminal law, including the controversial Zina Ordinance (“Ordinance”) which criminalizes sex outside of marriage. Shortly after its passing, the Ordinance led to the unjust incarceration of thousands of low-income women across the country. Decrying the law as violence against women, human rights supporters around the world demanded reform. Finally, in 2006, Pakistan passed the Protection of Women Act (PWA) that amended the Ordinance, rendering the law procedurally toothless. Still, reforms left the substance of the Ordinance intact, giving men license to take the law into their own hands with effective impunity, leading to a rise in honor killings. Given the need for repeal of the Ordinance, this paper looks to lessons learned from the successes and failures of the 2006 reform to propose a strategy for the future. The 2006 reform adopted an apologetic ‘pragmatic reformist’ approach, building a coalition of conservative Islamists and secularists behind an incremental policy shift. This paper proposes that for a more substantive change that is still effective, the women’s rights movement should shift away from the purely secular or purely Islamic approach to espouse secularism and human rights but using an Islamic rationale, shifting societal attitudes from within the tradition. Doing this, I echo arguments made by reformist-activists Abdullahi An’Naim and Ziba Mir-Hosseini among others as well as adopt the approach of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the High Courts, and the Federal Shariat Court (FSC) themselves in their attempts to reconcile Pakistan’s constitutional commitments to both human rights and Islamic law. Such a strategy, I posit, is slow but both effective and long-lasting.
1979年,在一场军事政变之后,齐亚哈克总统试图通过“伊斯兰化”巴基斯坦来煽动他的权力。在其他政策中,他颁布了《胡杜德法令》,将经典的伊斯兰教法编纂成刑法,包括有争议的《吉娜法令》(“法令”),将婚外性行为定为犯罪。该法令通过后不久,导致全国数千名低收入妇女被不公正地监禁。世界各地的人权支持者谴责这项法律是对妇女的暴力,要求改革。最后,在2006年,巴基斯坦通过了《保护妇女法》(PWA),修改了该条例,使法律在程序上失去了效力。尽管如此,改革并未改变该条例的实质内容,允许男性在不受惩罚的情况下自行行使法律,这导致了荣誉谋杀的上升。鉴于有必要废除该条例,本文从2006年改革的成功和失败中吸取教训,提出未来的策略。2006年的改革采取了一种道歉的“务实的改革派”方法,在渐进式的政策转变背后建立了保守的伊斯兰主义者和世俗主义者的联盟。本文提出,为了实现更实质性的、仍然有效的变革,妇女权利运动应该从纯粹世俗或纯粹伊斯兰的方式转向支持世俗主义和人权,但使用伊斯兰的基本原理,改变传统内部的社会态度。为此,我赞同改革派活动人士Abdullahi An 'Naim和Ziba Mir-Hosseini等人的观点,并采纳巴基斯坦最高法院、高等法院和联邦伊斯兰法院(FSC)自己的做法,试图调和巴基斯坦宪法对人权和伊斯兰法律的承诺。我认为,这种策略是缓慢的,但既有效又持久。
期刊介绍:
Muslim World Journal of Human Rights promises to serve as a forum in which barriers are bridged (or at least, addressed), and human rights are finally discussed with an eye on the Muslim world, in an open and creative manner. The choice to name the journal, Muslim World Journal of Human Rights reflects a desire to examine human rights issues related not only to Islam and Islamic law, but equally those human rights issues found in Muslim societies that stem from various other sources such as socio-economic and political factors, as well the interaction and intersections of the two areas. MWJHR welcomes submissions that apply the traditional human right framework in their analysis as well as those that transcend the boundaries of contemporary scholarship in this regard. Further, the journal also welcomes inter-disciplinary and/or comparative approaches to the study of human rights in the Muslim world in an effort to encourage the emergence of new methodologies in the field. Muslim World Journal of Human Rights recognizes that several highly contested debates in the field of human rights have been reflected in the Muslim world but have frequently taken on their own particular manifestation in accordance with the varying contexts of contemporary Muslim societies.