Dawn Editorial 24 May 2021
Rape cases
LAST year, the horrific gang rape of a woman in front of her children on the Sialkot-Lahore Motorway sparked protests across the country, with people gathering to demand accountability for the survivor and safety for women. This led to two anti-rape ordinances — the Anti-Rape (Investigation and Trial) Ordinance 2020 and the Pakistan Penal Code (Amendment) Ordinance 2020 — which expanded the definition of rape, included harsher punishments for perpetrators, and banned the degrading ‘two-finger’ test for victims of rape, which is also a form of assault. Additionally, it called for the establishment of special courts and rape crisis centres. Despite the approval of these ordinances, reported rape cases have risen to 200 in the federal capital, according to a recent report in this paper, with only one additional district and sessions judge authorised to look into such cases. Worryingly, around 80pc of offenders were acquitted due to “faulty investigation, poor prosecution and out-of-court settlements”. While some government ministers were eager to talk about the public hanging of perpetrators, they have not been able to correct the prosecution system for bringing perpetrators to justice.
It is no wonder then that few incidents of rape are officially reported, or pursued legally, as the process can be extremely painful for survivors, who have to relive trauma, and with little hope for justice. Consider the reaction of then Lahore CCPO Umar Sheikh, who engaged in victim-blaming language after the Motorway gang rape incident, and only apologised after considerable public pressure. Such an approach perpetuates the rape culture, which is defined as “stereotyped, false beliefs about rape that justify sexual aggression and trivialise the seriousness of sexual violence”. It is every citizen’s responsibility to challenge and push back against such warped beliefs about the world and society. One instructive example comes from Indonesia where 17-year-old Ain Husniza Saiful Nizam is stirring conversation on the rape culture with her #MakeSchoolASaferPlace campaign, after a teacher made a ‘rape joke’ in the presence of schoolchildren.
Rendered stateless
AN appalling abuse of power was reversed at the Islamabad High Court on Wednesday. The proceedings pertained to Nadra’s action in October 2019 of cancelling JUI-F leader Maulana Hamdullah’s CNIC — in effect, revoking his citizenship — on the grounds that he was an ‘alien’ and had obtained his identity papers through fraudulent means.
In a 29-page judgement, Chief Justice Athar Minallah wrote: “Citizenship is the most valuable basic right of a human. All other rights, whether social or political, cannot be enjoyed if a person does not have a bond of citizenship with a state.” The court ordered Nadra — that it said had acted in an “arbitrary and reckless manner” — to restore the CNIC of the former senator as well as those of other petitioners who had been subjected to the same on similar grounds. It held that the authority did not have the jurisdiction to initiate such proceedings on the basis of intelligence reports.
State institutions in Pakistan sometimes behave as though they operate in a vacuum where they can bend the law as it suits them. In Maulana Hamdullah’s case, it would be naïve to disregard the fact that his citizenship was revoked shortly before the JUI-F’s Azadi March on Islamabad. To add insult to injury, Pemra, citing Nadra’s cancellation of his CNIC, barred TV channels from inviting the outspoken JUI-F leader as a guest on talk shows because he was not a Pakistani citizen. This added another farcical element to what was already a bizarre situation. After all, there is no restriction on foreign individuals from appearing on TV talk shows. Moreover, the maulana’s papers must have undergone scrutiny each time he has stood for election, first to the Balochistan Assembly and later to the Senate. If any more proof were required that this was indeed an exercise in political persecution, consider that his father was a Balochistan government employee, and that his son is serving in the Pakistan Army.
To render someone stateless is a grave violation of rights, both according to domestic and international law. As the IHC ruling points out “… it virtually brings the life of an affected person to a halt … In a nutshell, the right to life guaranteed under Article 9 is virtually taken away”. That a government organisation can, on a whim, reduce an individual’s existence to naught in what is lawfully his or her country shows a disturbing escalation in tactics of oppression.
In fact, the fear of being rendered stateless is a very real one for many Pakistani citizens, particularly those born in India or what was once this country’s eastern wing. More often than not, each time they go to renew their identity and travel documents, they endure probing questions as to their credentials, whether they are ‘Pakistani’ enough to pass muster. Such paranoia does not behove a country nearly eight decades old.
Surprising claim
THE new economic growth estimate of nearly 4pc approved by the National Accounts Committee for the present fiscal year has caught almost everyone, including the State Bank and the finance ministry, by surprise. At this stage at least, more detailed information is needed to ascertain how far the figure truly reflects the economic situation. In the absence of an alternative, independent analysis of data and growth estimate, and in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic that has caused economies worldwide to slow down, the projection will be seen as overly optimistic. The NAC growth estimate beats the earlier, varying GDP expansion projections of 3pc by the central bank, 1.5pc by the IMF and 1.3pc by the World Bank. Besides, it is almost double the official growth target of 2.1pc. This year’s surprising growth rate may be explained — but only to a small extent — by the low-base effect of the last fiscal when the economy contracted by approximately 0.5pc owing to the lockdown and mobility curbs imposed to halt the spread of the infection. But not many seem prepared to accept the government’s claim.
There are reasons to be sceptical of the NAC data; it covers only up to nine months of the current fiscal — the projected GDP growth appears to be based on this period of time. For example, agricultural output is said to have increased by 2.8pc despite a 35pc decrease in domestic cotton production. The NAC’s projection of the wheat yield at 27.3m tonnes this year is also considerably higher than the Federal Committee on Agriculture’s estimate of 26m tonnes. The biggest surprise has come from the services sector, which has been hit the hardest by the pandemic but is claimed to have expanded by 4.4pc against the target of 2.6pc. The pandemic continued to disrupt the entire services industry and yet the latter is reported to have contributed 69pc to GDP growth. There is something amiss about the growth in the services sector — at least anecdotal evidence does not support NAC calculations. The finance ministry’s reservation that the 13.8pc growth in gross fixed capital formation wasn’t enough to prop up the 4pc GDP growth rate raises more doubts. Therefore, the NAC estimates need to be taken with a pinch of salt until we have more reliable information and independent analyses of the data it has used to make its projections.
