control and sexuality

Pakistanpolicies, which effectively (if not always overtly) followed the maxim of chador aur chardiwari (literally “veil and four walls”; i.e. women veiled and within the confines of the home)(Mullally 2006: 170). For instance, in 1980, one state policy required all female governmentemployees to wear chador over their other clothes (Pal 1990: 452). Similar requirementswere also imposed on women in certain public offices – such as news broadcasters andairline stewardesses. However, under these imposed reforms, the women’s movementmanaged to overcome some of its internal ideological and class-based differences andorganise a widespread resistance. In 1981, a grassroots-based popular front called theWomen’s Action Forum (WAF) was born, which brought together seven strong women’sgroups and individual supporters under the initial leadership of professional, middle-classwomen (Rouse 1988: 12). It still serves as a catalyst for other women’s groups of variouspolitical and religious convictions to publicly and collectively stand up against genderinjustice (Rouse 1988: 12), as well as for mounting international solidarity.Although General Zia’s dictatorship ended in 1988 with his death in a plane crash, theproblematic legacy of his ‘Islamisation’ policies is still deeply felt in Pakistani society. It tookanother military leader’s demand for public legitimacy, General Pervez Musharraf, after hisown coup d’état in 1999, before some of the most detrimental instances of Zia’s reformscould be reversed. Musharraf termed his policy orientation ‘enlightened moderation’,whereby extremist stances on any issue – including the role and interpretation of religionin the state of Pakistan – were to be ‘rationally opposed’. In 2000, after years of lobbying bywomen’s groups, the National Commission on the Status of Women was finally formed. In2004 and 2006, important amendments to domestic criminal law were introduced. The 2004Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill (referred to as Act I of 2005) introduced section 156B into the1898 Code of Criminal Procedure, which barred the arrest of women accused of zina withouta court’s permission. This section also required that the investigation of a zina case beconducted by an officer with the rank of Superintendent of Police. The 2006 Code of CriminalProcedure (Second Amendment) Ordinance (Act XXXV of 2006) made the offences underGeneral Zia’s 1979 Zina Ordinance bailable, resulting in the release of hundreds of womenaccused of zina from jails all over the country. Another set of amendments, known as the2006 Protection of Women Act, removed rape from the Zina Ordinance and, in procedurallaw, barred the conversion of any complaint of rape into a charge of adultery or fornicationagainst the complainant. The legislative changes, however, remain partial and insufficientto significantly challenge the patriarchal ethos permeating much of Pakistan’s tumultuousinter-Muslim and gender-based relations. The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitutionof Pakistan, passed in April 2010 by Parliament, turned Pakistan from a ‘semi-presidential’into a parliamentary republic. The Amendment reversed a number of the infringements onthe Constitution made over several decades by its military rulers, in particular by transferringmany of the presidential powers to Parliament and the prime minister’s office. If Pakistan isindeed to embark on reforms towards a decentralised parliamentary democracy, perhaps itsvital institutions in the judicial and executive sectors, along with civil society organisations,will finally have a chance to address gender injustice in a more substantive way.159