An evaluation of the success of women specific legislation submitted into the parliamentary asse... more An evaluation of the success of women specific legislation submitted into the parliamentary assemblies of Pakistan.
An initiation of a debate of how statutory interpretation may be employed to widen the ambit of e... more An initiation of a debate of how statutory interpretation may be employed to widen the ambit of existing offences in Pakistani law to include different categories of sexual violence
A report submitted by NGOs to the CEDAW Committee in 2012 reporting on the state of affairs in Pa... more A report submitted by NGOs to the CEDAW Committee in 2012 reporting on the state of affairs in Pakistan and identifying areas of concern and where the Government has little or weak response.
A pilot study and an analysis of the impact of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2004. The paper i... more A pilot study and an analysis of the impact of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2004. The paper investigates 4 districts in Pakistan to identify the effects of the law in the field. It analysis the judgments of the superior courts to identify trends and precedents of the issue. It examines the role of relevant stakeholders to see their reaction to 'honour' crimes and whether the law and system are responding adequately.
This paper explores totalizing dichotomies within the justice systems' attitude and response to r... more This paper explores totalizing dichotomies within the justice systems' attitude and response to rape and how they lead to social and legal impunity for perpetrators. It examines the victim-perpetrator based model applied by actors along the formal criminal justice system (CJS), that assumes a 'oneness' amongst both survivors and perpetrators of rape and thereby refuses to admit alternate narratives on agency, empowerment and harm that are critical to understanding power-based violence, particularly incest, marital and acquaintance rape. It argues that with gender being performative and gendered victim-perpetrator based cognitive structures restricting the use of statutory interpretation of law, little has been done to dislodge the dominant sexual ideology and orthodox sexual morality on which Pakistani law is based and applied. This paper examines the attitudes and response of the CJS through its various institutions or 'centres of power' i.e., the courts, police and the medico-legal sector, and discusses the role played by media and civil society in framing the national discourse on rape. It looks into the etymology of rape in legal opinions, focusing on structured lexical frames of legal utterances that lead to the construction of negative or positive base models that assign blame or vindicate alleged rapists and their victims. It traces various evidentiary requirements that need to be fulfilled before the pronouncement of guilt or innocence of the alleged rapist, based on the inferential power of such base models within the politics of representation. It also analyses expert opinions of medico-legal doctors and ideation of the typical victim/ perpetrator that assume a diagonally opposed relationship between resistance and consent and how that impacts the discourse on evidence in court. Through these deconstructions, this paper aims to isolate and subsequently challenge normative scripts on rape, and offers a resistance to the prevailing discourse around the issue in Pakistan.
An evaluation of the success of women specific legislation submitted into the parliamentary asse... more An evaluation of the success of women specific legislation submitted into the parliamentary assemblies of Pakistan.
An initiation of a debate of how statutory interpretation may be employed to widen the ambit of e... more An initiation of a debate of how statutory interpretation may be employed to widen the ambit of existing offences in Pakistani law to include different categories of sexual violence
A report submitted by NGOs to the CEDAW Committee in 2012 reporting on the state of affairs in Pa... more A report submitted by NGOs to the CEDAW Committee in 2012 reporting on the state of affairs in Pakistan and identifying areas of concern and where the Government has little or weak response.
A pilot study and an analysis of the impact of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2004. The paper i... more A pilot study and an analysis of the impact of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2004. The paper investigates 4 districts in Pakistan to identify the effects of the law in the field. It analysis the judgments of the superior courts to identify trends and precedents of the issue. It examines the role of relevant stakeholders to see their reaction to 'honour' crimes and whether the law and system are responding adequately.
This paper explores totalizing dichotomies within the justice systems' attitude and response to r... more This paper explores totalizing dichotomies within the justice systems' attitude and response to rape and how they lead to social and legal impunity for perpetrators. It examines the victim-perpetrator based model applied by actors along the formal criminal justice system (CJS), that assumes a 'oneness' amongst both survivors and perpetrators of rape and thereby refuses to admit alternate narratives on agency, empowerment and harm that are critical to understanding power-based violence, particularly incest, marital and acquaintance rape. It argues that with gender being performative and gendered victim-perpetrator based cognitive structures restricting the use of statutory interpretation of law, little has been done to dislodge the dominant sexual ideology and orthodox sexual morality on which Pakistani law is based and applied. This paper examines the attitudes and response of the CJS through its various institutions or 'centres of power' i.e., the courts, police and the medico-legal sector, and discusses the role played by media and civil society in framing the national discourse on rape. It looks into the etymology of rape in legal opinions, focusing on structured lexical frames of legal utterances that lead to the construction of negative or positive base models that assign blame or vindicate alleged rapists and their victims. It traces various evidentiary requirements that need to be fulfilled before the pronouncement of guilt or innocence of the alleged rapist, based on the inferential power of such base models within the politics of representation. It also analyses expert opinions of medico-legal doctors and ideation of the typical victim/ perpetrator that assume a diagonally opposed relationship between resistance and consent and how that impacts the discourse on evidence in court. Through these deconstructions, this paper aims to isolate and subsequently challenge normative scripts on rape, and offers a resistance to the prevailing discourse around the issue in Pakistan.
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