Convicted rapist freed after marrying victim – media – RT World News
Pakistani court reportedly overturns life sentence against man for agreeing to marry woman he assaulted
A convicted rapist in Pakistan allegedly escaped jail time by agreeing to marry the 36-year-old deaf woman he assaulted and impregnated in 2020.
The Peshawar High Court on Monday overturned his life sentence against Daulat Khan, 23, after he married the woman he was convicted of raping, CNN reported on Thursday, citing the man’s lawyer. The marriage follows an out-of-court settlement reached through a jirga, a council of local leaders who make decisions based on Islamic law.
Khan had also been fined 100,000 rupees ($1,200) for the sexual assault which occurred in Swat district in northern Pakistan. The victim, who is said to be both deaf and mute, later gave birth to a child as a result of the rape.
The HRCP is appalled to learn that a Peshawar Magistrate’s Court has acquitted a man convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for raping a deaf and deaf woman. Rape is a non-aggravated offense that cannot be solved by a weak marriage of « compromise » pic.twitter.com/t9xcZegu0s
— Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (@HRCP87) December 27, 2022
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has condemned the court’s decision to release Khan, based on a « compromise » marriage, as « miscarriage of justice. » “Rape is a non-aggravated offense that cannot be solved by such a weak compromise. The verdict is therefore a flagrant violation of the law and a miscarriage of justice. The commission urged prosecutors to appeal the decision and uphold the government’s commitment to women’s rights.
According to the HRCP, an average of 11 rapes are reported every day in Pakistan, and many cases go unreported. The jirgas have been accused of perpetuating a culture of victim-shaming, particularly in relation to rape. A jirga in central Pakistan infamously ordered in 2017 that a 16-year-old girl be raped as punishment for her brother’s alleged sexual assault on another girl.
Swat gained some infamy in 2012, when a Pakistani Taliban sniper shot a girl in the head for defying the group’s orders not to attend school. Ten men were arrested and sentenced to 25 years in prison for their role in the shooting. The young girl, Malala Yousafzai, survived and became a prominent education activist. She received the Sakharov Prize in 2013 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014.
The Pakistani government has responded to the outcry over sexual assaults by toughening the nation’s rape law and setting up special courts to try cases quickly. The country’s parliament passed a law last year giving judges the ability to sentence rapists to be chemically castrated. This provision was later dropped in the face of opposition from scholars of Islamic law.
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