“Uzma, Nadia, Sobia, Nazish . . .” she chants. Next to many of the names is the word “raped”. Underneath each of these is written “victim of the Hudood ordinance”, a draconian law that makes it almost impossible to prosecute a rapist and often lands the victim in jail.
As chief co-ordinator of Pakistan’s Progressive Women’s Association, Bokhari takes up their cases and often ends up sheltering the women in her house, despite receiving threats. “Look,” she says, pointing at a green sheet of cuttings from August 2005 headed “Fatima”. “She was just three years old and he raped her, then killed her . . . Of course the man has gone free.”
Shockingly, the pile of papers on Bokhari’s floor represents cases just from the past year or so and only in the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. “Here alone we had 580 cases of women behind bars last year because of the Hudood ordinance,” she says.
One woman is raped every two hours and one gang-raped every eight hours, according to the country’s independent Human Rights Commission. But under the ordinance introduced in 1979 by the dictator General Zia ul-Haq as part of an Islamisation campaign, rape cases have to be dealt with in sharia courts. Victims need four male witnesses to the crime — or face prosecution for adultery.
More than 2,000 women are in jail for intercourse — either victims of rape or those who have eloped to marry for love and have then been reported, usually by one of their parents.
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But after 27 years of protests by activists such as Bokhari, Pakistan’s Senate finally voted last week to pass an amendment to the ordinance drawn up by President Pervez Musharraf, despite resignation threats from MPs from religious parties.
Described by Musharraf as “a victory of justice, truth and the progressive forces”, the Women’s Protection Bill will allow civil courts to try rape cases and admit DNA evidence. It also drops the penalty of stoning to death for sex outside marriage, although activists acknowledge that such sentences are not carried out.
“I’ve given almost half my life to this,” says Bokhari, who is in her fifties, “so many days demonstrating in baking heat and freezing rain, being beaten and arrested. I hope and I pray that this law is the beginning of a new enlightened tomorrow for the women of Pakistan.”
The women’s plight was highlighted by the case of Mukhtaran Mai, a 30-year-old woman from a village in southern Punjab who was gang-raped at gunpoint in 2002. This brutal attack was a punishment decreed by a tribal council after her 12-year-old brother was accused, wrongly, of raping a girl from a rival tribe.
Instead of committing suicide, which is often seen as the only way out for women whose honour has been besmirched, Mukhtaran went to court.
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After her case was taken up by the international media, the four perpetrators and two accomplices were sentenced to death. The convictions were later overturned but the men remain in prison awaiting a retrial.
Mukhtaran was named “woman of the year” last year by an American magazine. There was an outcry when Musharraf apparently refused to give her permission to travel and told The Washington Post: “This has become a money-making concern.”
He added: “A lot of people say if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped.”
Musharraf denied making the comments but the interview had been taped. Mukhtaran was given a passport and used the money from her award to set up a school. She now produces a weekly blog on the problems of women in her village. As she cannot read or write, she tells her stories to a local journalist and they are printed on the website of the BBC Urdu service.
Some of the comments on her blog are from men complaining that she is damaging the image of Pakistan and that rape happens all over the world. But it is not just men who object to the changes. The new legislation has left women on both sides of the debate complaining.
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“Yes, it’s a step forward but it’s not enough just to pick at the old law,” says Asma Jehangir, founding member of Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission and co-founder of the country’s first all-woman law practice.
The bill was watered down to introduce a “fornication” clause which will continue to make it illegal for unmarried women to have sex. “The whole Hudood ordinance needs to be repealed,” Jehangir said.
On the other side, Razia Aziz, a woman MP from Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan’s biggest religious party, argues: “This law is not suitable for our culture. You in the West have your culture and we have ours. Besides, I don’t think we can change the life of women just by amending a law.”
Aziz, who does voluntary work among the female inmates of Peshawar prison, believes that, far from protecting women, the new law will result in an increase in honour killings.
“Many of the women are there because they have married without their parents’ permission and a parent has filed a case. If they are not in jail, they will be killed by their tribes. These are girls of 14, 16, and they beg us, ‘Don’t let us out or we will be killed’.”
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There has been bitter wrangling in the Senate over the bill, which was passed in the lower house on November 15. “This is not only a sin but a rebellion against God,” insisted Professor Khurshid Ahmed, one of the leaders of the MMA alliance of religious parties.
Senator Sajid Mir, of the Muslim League, described it as “part of an overall strategy to turn the coast from Gwadar to Karachi into pleasure houses”.
The bill passed its final hurdle late on Thursday night and Musharraf is expected to sign it into legislation this week.
But there is widespread scepticism over his reasons. Imran Khan, the former cricket captain turned politician, is among many who believe Musharraf’s real aim has been to split the opposition in the run-up to a general election next year and to please the Americans.
“It’s nothing more than a tool to project his own image to the West,” Khan said.
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Bokhari believes Musharraf should be congratulated, whatever his reasons. Gesturing at the victims’ records, she says: “Sadly, it’s too late for most of them.” Many of those who were not killed or jailed had committed suicide.
“We’ve still a long way to go,” adds Bokhari, much of whose time is spent helping “stove victims”, women whose families have tried to burn them to death after collecting a dowry.
And despite a wall full of awards from America, France and Germany, she had to close her women’s shelter in Rawalpindi earlier this year because of a lack of funding.