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The Women's Protection Bill which was passed by the National Assembly of Pakistan on 15 November 2006 is an attempt to amend the heavily criticised 1979 Hudood Ordinance laws which govern the punishment for rape and adultery in Pakistan.〔''The Hindu'', ("Musharraf wants Hudood laws amended" )〕〔See also "Statement of Objects and Reasons", Women's Protection Act, 2006〕 Critics of the Hudood Ordinance alleged that it made it exceptionally difficult and dangerous to prove an allegation of rape, and thousand of women had been imprisoned as a result of the bill. The bill returned a number of offenses from the Zina Ordinance to the Pakistan Penal Code, where they had been before 1979, and created an entirely new set of procedures governing the prosecution of the offenses of adultery and fornication.〔 ==Impact== The Hudood Ordinances, enacted by military ruler Zia ul-Haq in 1979, criminalize adultery and non-marital consensual sex. They also made a rape victim liable to prosecution for adultery if she cannot produce four male witnesses to the assault. A 2003 report by the National Commission on Status of Women (NCSW) estimated "80% of women" were incarcerated because "they had failed to prove rape charges and were consequently convicted of adultery."〔(Jails and prisoners, State of Human Rights 2004, HRCP ) 1500 women are "believed to be in jail in March" in 2003 according to the HRCP report.〕〔(Hudood Ordinance - The Crime And Punishment For Zina ) amnesty.org〕〔In 2003 the National Commission on Status of Women estimated 1500 women were in prison, but according to another report (statistics compiled by the Society for Advancement of Community Health Education and Training (SACHET) and Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA) Team for Karachi Women Prison) 7000 women and children were kept in extremely poor conditions in 75 jails in 2003-2004 (sources: (Violence against Women and Impediments in Access to Justice )〕〔(Pakistan: Pakistani religious law challenged ))〕 According to legal scholar Martin Lau While it was easy to file a case against a woman accusing her of adultery, the Zina Ordinance made it very difficult for a woman to obtain bail pending trial. Worse, in actual practice, the vast majority of accused women were found guilty by the trial court only to be acquitted on appeal to the Federal Shariat Court. By then they had spent many years in jail, were ostracized by their families, and had become social outcasts.〔Lau, "Twenty-Five Years of Hudood Ordinances", 2007: p.1296〕 Attention to the Ordinance and suggestions for revising it were given by a number of government appointed commissions, a televised several weeks-long-televised debate on the subject of "No debate on Hudood Allah (Allah's laws as prescribed in Quran and Sunnah)-is the Hudood Ordinance (Man's interpretation of Allah's law) Islamic?" on Geo television channel, and a 2005 University of Karachi Dept of Public Administration workshop. The chief architects of the Women's Protection Bill are reported to be former Attorney General Makhdoom Ali Khan who was responsible for it taking legal shape and the Chairman of the Council of Islamic Ideology Muhammad Khalid Masud. The new Women's Protection Bill brings rape under the Pakistan Penal Code, which is based on civil law, not Sharia (Islamic law). The Bill removes the right of police to detain people suspected of having sex outside of marriage, instead requiring a formal accusation in court. Under the changes, adultery and non-marital consensual sex is still an offence but now judges would be allowed to try rape cases in criminal rather than Islamic courts. That does away with the need for the four witnesses and allows convictions to be made on the basis of forensic and circumstantial evidence. The amendments change the punishment for someone convicted of having consensual sex outside marriage to imprisonment of up to five years and a fine of Rs10,000.〔Lau, "Twenty-Five Years of Hudood Ordinances", 2007: p.1308〕 Rape would be punishable with 10 to 25 years of imprisonment but with death or life imprisonment if committed by two or more persons together, while adultery would remain under the Hudood ordinance and is punishable with stoning to death. A complaint of adultery must be made to a judge with at least four witnesses testifying under oath that they witnessed the act of penetration.〔Lau, "Twenty-Five Years of Hudood Ordinances", 2007: p.1308-12〕 It is the change in the punishment for fornication and rape which is the major source of controversy. The Bill also outlaws statutory rape i.e. sex with girls under the age of 16. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Women's Protection Bill」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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