Equality Now Press Statement

While welcoming Pakistan’s attempt at addressing its unjust rape laws under the Hudood Ordinances by signing into law the Protection of Women (Criminal Laws Amendment) Rights Bill, Equality Now regrets that the government did not take the opportunity to revoke the Hudood Ordinances in their entirety, as women's and human rights groups in Pakistan have called for. In a positive move, the new law allows rape cases to be heard in a criminal court where forensic and circumstantial evidence can be used to prove the case. Under Hudood, the impossible burden of getting the eye-witness testimony of four adult males was needed for a conviction.

Equality Now urges the government of Pakistan to continue with the reforms to ensure equal protection of women under the law and to bring its laws in line with Pakistan’s own Constitution which guarantees equality under the law, as well as with international human rights standards to which it is a party, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Equality Now will continue to campaign for the complete repeal of the Hudood Ordinances and for the government of Pakistan to promote and protect the rights of women.

Women and girls around the world need your help.
SUPPORT EQUALITY NOW

New York Nairobi London