Islamisation on Women in Pakistan and Crime Against Women

By Mishal Zia – 1st December 2021

Islamisation and women’s rights in Pakistan are often presented as compatible, yet in reality, they exist in direct opposition. Islamic law, known as Shariah-e-law, is hailed as the moral backbone of the Muslim community, yet in Pakistan it has been repeatedly manipulated to oppress women rather than protect them. Despite the country’s multicultural and multi-religious identity, Islamic principles dominate legal and public life, often enforced or defended by the state and its institutions, including the army, which has historically played a central role in shaping and maintaining these laws.

One of the most infamous cases exposing the misuse of Islamic law involved Safia Bibi, an unmarried blind woman from the Northwest Frontier Province, who was charged under the Zina Ordinance after an unnatural pregnancy. She was sentenced to three years in prison, fifteen lashes, and a fine of one hundred rupees, while her attacker went free. The judge claimed insufficient evidence connected him to the rape. This case was an early example of how Islamic law, under the guise of justice, punishes women while shielding men from accountability.

Another horrifying case is that of Zafran Bibi, a twenty-six-year-old villager who suffered sexual assault yet was sentenced to death by stoning. Judge Anwar Ali Khan justified this by citing literal interpretations of the Hudood Ordinances, claiming her illegitimate child proved her guilt. Her alleged admission of sexual relations with her brother-in-law, after accusing him of rape, sealed her fate. Zafran Bibi remains in solitary confinement on death row. In Pakistan, women are punished for being victims while men escape justice, and the state remains complicit in this systemic oppression.

History is filled with atrocities sanctioned or ignored by the state. In 1983, Shahida, a young woman from Lahore, was gang-raped, yet the police, influenced by political and military pressures, refused to act because the perpetrators were considered honourable men. During General Zia-ul-Haq’s military regime, hundreds of women were imprisoned under the Hudood Ordinances for attempting to report rape. This created a culture in which male violence was shielded by state power while women were criminalised.

The 2007 case of Mukhtaran Mai exposed the deep collusion of local authorities and military-backed institutions in enforcing patriarchal norms. She was gang-raped as part of a tribal honour punishment, and local courts initially failed to convict her attackers due to political interference and entrenched patriarchal bias. Her suffering illustrated the systematic failure of the state, including army-backed legal structures, to protect women or hold men accountable.

Even in recent years, cases continue to demonstrate the lethal consequences of patriarchal laws enforced and protected by state institutions. Girls as young as twelve have been arrested under the Zina Ordinance for extramarital sexual activity, cases that would previously have resulted in statutory rape charges against the perpetrators. Underage marriage remains widespread, often tacitly enforced by local administrations in collusion with influential families. This creates an environment in which women and girls are utterly vulnerable.

The Council of Islamic Ideology, a constitutional body closely linked to the state, has been instrumental in shaping these oppressive laws. While it originally focused on societal Islamisation, its work since the 1980s, including the Hudood Ordinances, has overwhelmingly targeted women. Women accused under these laws face almost impossible hurdles to obtain bail, and even if later acquitted by the Federal Shariat Court, they endure years of imprisonment, social isolation, and permanent stigma.

The army and the judiciary have historically supported the enforcement of these laws, either actively or passively. Under military regimes, women’s rights were consistently subordinated to the ideology of Islamic morality, which prioritises patriarchal control over justice. Reports from human rights organisations indicate that this state complicity extends from police officers who refuse to register complaints to judges who openly cite Shariah as justification for punishing victims.

The so-called safeguards in the law are entirely theoretical. Women are required to present witnesses of high moral standing who must have directly observed the act of penetration for the rapist to be punished. Failure to meet this impossible standard automatically subjects women to tazir, effectively punishing victims while exonerating perpetrators. Girls as young as twelve have been imprisoned for consensual or forced sexual activity while the state turns a blind eye to the men who abuse them.

Press coverage, human rights reports, and international criticism repeatedly expose the abuse women endure, yet the Pakistani state, including its military, police, and judiciary, continues to protect perpetrators while punishing victims. The Hudood Ordinances, framed as divinely sanctioned, have become tools of oppression. Women are not merely neglected, they are actively criminalised, silenced, and socially destroyed.

It is impossible to reconcile claims of Islamic morality with the realities experienced by women in Pakistan. These laws are not about justice, but about control. They serve to uphold patriarchal power, supported and enforced by the state itself, leaving women at the mercy of a legal and political framework that is fundamentally unjust and brutally complicit.