India Street Protests Inspire Women’s Rights Advocates in Pakistan

The horrific gang rape of a young woman in Delhi, India last month led to widespread public outrage in India. Protesters took to the streets and demanded India’s government take a harder look at the country’s rape laws.

In neighboring Pakistan, these large-scale protests inspired women’s rights activists and lawyers. Although mass demonstrations against sexual violence are a rarity in Pakistan, women’s rights advocates have a 25-year-long history of fighting against repressive rape laws. This has led to some improvements over time.

Hina Jilani, a lawyer practicing in Pakistan’s Supreme Court and one of the country’s prominent women’s rights campaigners, says the women’s rights movement is one of the strongest in South Asia, setting “the tone for public protest as an effective mode of compliance with human rights standards by governments, especially in the area of violence against women.”

The protests in India, she says, show Pakistanis “how important it is that the responsibility and the ownership of social action is taken by the public, and not just left to small groups of civil society organizations, or human rights and women’s rights groups.”

She told The World’s Jeb Sharp that the Indian protests reverberated in Pakistan, in protests “in Lahore, in big cities like Karachi. This certainly is something that has inspired a kind of reinvigoration of advocacy on violence against women.”

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Jeb Sharp: I’m Jeb Sharp and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH Boston. The horrific gang-raping and death of a young woman in Delhi last month led to widespread public outrage in India. Protesters took to the streets demanding more respect and justice for women in India. Those protests have reverberated in neighboring Pakistan. Women’s activist there have been fighting oppressive rape laws for years. One of those activist is Hina Jilani, a lawyer who practices before Pakistan’s Supreme Court.

Hina Jilani: I think this whole public mobilization has been very inspiring for people in Pakistan. They now understand how important it is that the responsibility and the ownership of social action is taken by the public and not just left to small groups of civil society organizations or human rights and women’s rights groups.

Sharp: Has there been a similar case in Pakistan, something so egregious and so public that people couldn’t look away?

Jilani: Yes, there have been, and in Pakistan there has been similar mobilization. We’ve also had, because of that, a kind of mobilization over certain cases. Many policy changes and certainly legislative reform did take place in 2004, which dealt with the very notorious rape law in Pakistan that was famous for turning the victim into the accused because of certain technicalities in the law and because of its anti-women slant.

Sharp: Is that law still in effect?

Jilani: No, but prosecution of rape cases is still a problem. Not more than 2 percent of rape cases that are reported can be successfully prosecuted, basically because of requirements of evidence and because of laxity in investigation.

Sharp: Hina, tell me how Pakistan is the same of different from India in its response to gender violence.

Jilani: The difference between the situation in India and some of the other South Asian states, of course, is that India has had a consistent history of Democracy. Many of our countries have fallen prey, time and again, to dictatorial and arbitrary rulers who as a policy have promoted one particular trend or another as a ploy to control people’s lives and therefore the kind of public action we have seen in Delhi where almost everyone was out in the road protesting is difficult to achieve in Pakistan. Nevertheless, Pakistan does have a history of public protest. Women’s rights movement is one of the strongest and they have perhaps set the tone for public protest as an effective mode of compliance with human rights standards by governments especially in the area of violence against women.

Sharp: But Hina, I take what you say and hear the history, but isn’t it the case that it can be very tough to protest in Pakistan. I mean, when people gather to protest something like what has just happened in India, what happens?

Jilani: Now, of course, with the fact that there is an elected political government in place, we do not expect any kind of violent response from governments. But in the past, let me tell you, during Marshal Law, for instance, it was the norm that brute force of the state was used against women’s rights activists, against journalists, against lawyers, against parliamentarians, even when we had come out to protest on any issue and on any violation of human rights.

Sharp: Finally, just how do you see this case in India affecting cases in Pakistan if at all?

Jilani: I think it is already affecting the situation of civil society, response to this whole question of violence against women not just in Pakistan but in other South Asian counties, also. You have seen that this particular protest did reverberate in other South Asian capitals, in Bohol, in big cities like Karachi. This is certainly something that has inspired a kind of re-invigoration of advocacy on violence against women.

Sharp: Hina Jilani, thank you very much.

Jilani: Thank you

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