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| "With the men, they apply the principle that you are innocent until proven guilty," said Asma Jahangir, an official of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and the author of a book on hudood. "With the women, they apply the principle that you are guilty until proven innocent." The man Ms. Zafran accused, Jamal Khan, was set free without charges. A case against him would have been a waste of the court's time. Under the laws of zina, four male witnesses, all Muslims and all citizens of upright character, must testify to having seen a rape take place. The testimony of women or non-Muslims is not admissible. The victim's accusation also carries little weight; the only significant testimony she can give is an admission of guilt. "The proof is totally impossible," said Ms. Naz. "If a woman brings a charge of rape, she puts herself in grave danger." If, on the other hand, the woman does not report the rape and becomes pregnant out of wedlock, her silence can be taken as proof of guilt. It is not only women but also young girls who are at risk, Aurat says. If girls report a rape, they face the same prospects of punishment as women. A man can deflect an accusation of rape by claiming that his victim, of any age, consented. If the victim has reached puberty, she is considered to be an adult and is then subject to prosecution for zina. As a result, the Aurat report says, girls as young as 12 or 13 have been convicted of having forbidden sexual relations and have been punished with imprisonment and a public whipping. With no safe recourse, rights workers say, rape victims often flee to the protection of influential families, which may take them in as servants. The harsh life of women like Ms. Zafran seems to blend with the harshness of the land on which they live. The dry, rocky hills along the frontier with Afghanistan, where only thorn bushes thrive, offer no hint to the people here that a gentler life is possible. Flat mud houses scattered like tiny forts across the landscape suggest that there is little companionship among the people who toil here. When Ms. Zafran was given in marriage to Niamat Khan, his family took possession of her and she disappeared into their mud-walled compound a mile away. Her parents rarely saw her again; they are too poor even to have a photograph to remind them of her. In this barren world, where people grow hard to survive, their tenderness for their daughter seems all the more painful. They sat silently one recent day on the string beds that are the only furnishings of their bare one-room home. Ms. Zafran's father, Zaidan, an unsmiling, weatherbeaten man, spread his hands as if he had no words to offer. "When we heard the sentence, we couldn't breathe," he said at last. "We couldn't think. For days we couldn't eat. There was nothing we could do for our daughter." He said he had sold his family's only possessions, two thin goats, to help pay for a lawyer. His wife, Shiraka, whose beauty seems only to have been deepened by her difficult life, looked away. "I have been sucked dry by grief," she said. |
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