Compass Gender Spotlight: Mukadam Murder Case Galvanizes Pakistani Women’s Rights Movement
Weak legislation and gaps in the justice system have forced countless Pakistani women to suffer domestic violence in silence. (Creative Commons)
Content warning: Graphic description of violence against women, sexual assault, rape
Police found the beheaded body of 27-year-old Noor Mukadam in the residence of a wealthy neighborhood in Islamabad on July 20. Nearly three months later, protests continue in Pakistan’s capital, and public outrage over the murder is forcing the government to grapple with legislation that has historically failed to uphold the rights of Pakistani women.
Mukadam’s case made headlines in July as the grisly details of her torture, rape, and murder brought thousands to rally behind the social media movement #JusticeForNoor. According to the initial police report, Mukadam, the daughter of former Pakistani diplomat Shaukat Mukadam was “brutally murdered with a sharp-edged weapon and beheaded.” Her body was found in the home of Zahir Jaffer, a family acquaintance who committed the murder after Mukadam refused to marry him.
The case has sent shockwaves through international media, exposing the pervasion of violence against women that affects even the upper echelons of Pakistani society. Activists emphasize that although Noor’s murder may have made headlines because of her social status, there are thousands of cases of femicide that go unheard and unreported each year. To these activists, #JusticeForNoor is not an isolated fight for individual justice, but a stepping stone to achieving legislation that serves all Pakistani women.
Weak Legislation
The rights of women in Pakistani society have been disputed since Pakistan’s founding. In a newly independent Pakistan, the women who played significant roles in the independence movement were excluded from the government positions they’d fought to create by the men in power. After limited to no representation in Pakistan’s first two Constituent Assemblies, female Pakistani activists were able to secure increased reservations for female representatives over several decades. Even as reservations increased, however, the small proportion of female Pakistani legislators manifested itself in weak policy and implementation.
The first piece of legislation aimed at improving women’s rights was the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance of 1961, which included the standardization of marriage contracts and an increase of the minimum marriage age from 14 to 16. While the laws did fortify legal protections for women, the restrictions on polygamy and divorce in the Ordinance drew pushback from Islamic conservatives that severely limited the implementation of its provisions. In many cases, women were unaware of the law’s protections or feared the social implications of straying from tradition. A similar pattern emerged in the early 1970s, when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s progressive government ratified a new constitution that placed restrictions on dowry, allowed women access to all jobs, and banned discrimination on the basis of sex. On paper this was landmark legislation, however, once again, the laws were more symbolic than effective—and their lack of thoroughness led them to be frequently circumvented. The laws’ limited scope over rural town councils (jirgas) means that many women are sentenced to punishment or death by these councils without a formal trial within the legal system, for ‘transgressions’ including dating, being sexually assaulted, or bringing dishonor unto the community. Legal provisions that still exist today allow family members of a murder victim to pardon the accused, which has led perpetrators of inter-family “honor killings” to walk free without punishment even today.
The Hudood Ordinances, issued in 1979 under General Zia ul-Haq’s military dictatorship, were a large setback to women’s rights. The laws criminalized adultery and non-marital sex as non-bailable offenses punishable by death and placed them under the jurisdiction of Islamic courts instead of the Pakistani Penal Code, which subjected these offenses to different evidentiary standards and punishments of the Islamic court. As a result, rape and sexual assault survivors were often themselves convicted and sent to jail for having engaged in sexual activity—a pattern that had grave impacts in fortifying the culture of silence surrounding sexual assault and domestic abuse in Pakistan. Zia ul-Haq’s administration ultimately left an enduring legacy that upholds female subjugation, the regulation of public morality, and the erosion of women’s rights to equality and justice. Today, while elements of Bhutto’s progressive constitution have returned, the Hudood Ordinances are yet to be entirely repealed despite the Human Rights Watch’s assertion that they violate Pakistan’s obligations as a signatory of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.
The Human Rights Watch is not the only organization to have expressed concerns about the state of women’s rights in Pakistan, many of which cite escalating violence in recent years as an alarming sign that political and ideological divisions within the Pakistani government are preventing the effective implementation of legislation.
Politico-Religious Tensions
In the past ten years, discrepancies between Pakistani legislators and the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) have diminished the ability of Parliament to pass legislation that advances women’s rights. The Council of Islamic Ideology is a constitutional body responsible for evaluating laws’ adherence to Islamic values, and while its proposals aren’t binding, its history of conservative rulings has garnered support from religious groups and several parliamentarians that has slowed down progressive legislation. Provincial laws including the Punjab Women’s Protection Bill of 2016 have been passed; however, their limited scope and ability to punish offenders renders them insufficient in a country where gender-based violence is rampant.
According to Pakistan’s Ministry of Human Rights, 28 percent of Pakistani women between ages 15 and 49 have experienced physical violence, but the stigma surrounding abuse suggests that the official statistics in Pakistan suffer from severe underreporting. A recent study in the Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal on domestic violence in Pakistan found that “since sexual violence still remains a taboo topic and marital rape is yet to be considered as violence, there is an increasing trend in sexual violence as well as physical and sexual violence combined.” This points toward a severe failure of Pakistan’s justice system in empowering survivors to come forward. Of the cases that do make it in front of a judge, only three percent actually result in a conviction—a lapse in justice that forces thousands of women to endure abuse in silence.
Efforts from Pakistani lawmakers to pass legislation advancing women’s rights continue to face backlash from the CII. In 2016, in response to the Punjab Women’s Protection Bill, the leader of Pakistan’s Islamic council Mohammad Khan Sheerani proposed a bill that would allow (and encourage) husbands to “lightly beat” their wives if they defied their husband’s commands, dressed inappropriately, or denied their husbands sex. The bill recommends a small stick as a weapon not too forceful, but enough to “instill fear” in a disobedient wife. The provisions of the bill echo sentiments recently expressed by Pakistani clerics who publicly blamed “indecent” and “vulgar women” for the COVID-19 pandemic.
Noor’s Legacy
Noor Mukadam’s gruesome murder has drawn attention from international human rights organizations and journalists alike, whose coverage in Pakistan has unveiled the true scale of oppression and violence against women in the country. Their work reveals that rape, murder, acid attacks, domestic violence, and forced marriage remain a serious threat to Pakistani women. Human rights activists estimate that there are approximately 1000 honor killings in Pakistan each year, and the practice of child marriage sees more than 20 percent of Pakistani girls married before age 18. Corruption, cases of intimidation, and legislative loopholes allow countless offenders to walk free each year.
Activists have used the increased media attention on Pakistan’s women’s rights failures to pressure Parliament to pass a domestic violence bill that decriminalizes domestic violence—however, pushback from the CII threatens to kill the bill. After facing delays in the Senate, the Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Bill of 2021 was set to pass until a high-ranking member of Parliament requested the bill be sent to the CII for review. Many activists fear that even if the bill is passed, the version that emerges from the CII will be a diluted and weak version of the original bill.
The trial of Noor Mukadam’s killer is set to begin on October 14, and as it progresses, thousands of women across the country watch in anticipation as Pakistan’s justice system is put to the test. Time will tell whether justice will finally be delivered—not only for Noor, but for the countless silenced survivors who dare to hope this case will be the one to return a voice to Pakistan’s women.