PAKISTAN:Wives who ask for a divorce are often falsely accused of having affairs and face social stigma or even jail, writes Mary Jordanin Rawalpindi
NAHEED ARSHAD, her bright green headscarf framing dull, brown eyes, had just endured nine months in prison on a charge of adultery.
"My husband accused me of having an affair," said Arshad (35), her hand covering her mouth as she spoke quietly of the serious criminal charge that has disgraced her.
After a judge acquitted her in May, she joined thousands of other women living in a growing network of government and private shelters. She spends her days cooking, sewing and unhappy; despite the judge's verdict, the shame of the charge has narrowed her already-limited options in life.
It is rare for a Pakistani woman accused of having illicit sex to talk publicly or allow herself to be photographed. But Arshad spoke freely about once taboo subjects (see below), saying repeatedly, "I have done nothing wrong".
"Why do I suffer?" Arshad asked. "It is just not fair."
Increasing numbers of Pakistani women are becoming aware of gender inequities as the communications revolution brings mobile phones, satellite television and the internet to the poorest villages. In this country of 167 million people, a key issue is laws and customs governing sexual conduct that sometimes date back centuries.
The friction is especially evident in the use of laws that criminalise sex outside marriage. Husbands angry at wives who want a divorce, and parents angry at daughters who reject their choice of a husband, are yearly filing hundreds of criminal complaints of illegal sexual behaviour, say legal aid lawyers.
"Husbands and brothers are using these laws to take revenge on women," said Noor Alam Khan, a lawyer in Peshawar in northwest Pakistan. "Maybe one in 100 charges are true," he said.
A recent study found that about three times a day somewhere in Pakistan, relatives file complaints with police alleging that a daughter or wife has been "abducted with the intent of illicit sexual relations", one of the laws governing sexual behaviour.
Men are also arrested on illicit sex charges, but the stigma attached to having an affair is far greater for a woman, and even an accusation can mark her for life.
The aim of these charges is often not a successful prosecution, said Hina Jilani, one of the nation's leading female lawyers and founder of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Rather, she said, "it's to harass and intimidate women". "Even if a woman is finally acquitted," says Naeem Mirza, programme director for the Aurat Foundation, a leading women's rights organisation, "the price she pays through social retribution and honour is heavy."
Farazana Zahir (20), from Lahore, said she was forced to marry her cousin - a common traditional practice - and now wants a divorce.
"I strongly believe I should have choices - of whom I marry, how I spend my time," she said.
Zahir's family told police she was "abducted" for sex by a man she met at a family party. She calls the charge a sham, retribution for her asking for a divorce.
Men are allowed four wives in Pakistan, but women can have only one husband. Getting a divorce is harder for women. A wife must petition the court while a husband can end his marriage by simply saying "I divorce thee" three times.
"If I were a boy, this wouldn't be happening," Zahir said, an olive-coloured head scarf pulled over her young, determined face. "But I am going to divorce."
As she sat in the busy Lahore law offices of Jilani and her sister, Asma Jahangir, two dozen other women waited in the corridor. Many were seeking divorces; others were fighting criminal cases they said arose from conflicts with husbands or parents. Some were older and wore black veils; most were young and wore head scarves in bright oranges, reds or floral patterns.
Women interviewed there said men complain they are being influenced by promiscuous Western ideas. But the women say they are hardly looking for the Hollywood lifestyle.
"Why can't I talk to a boy?" asks Rashida Khan (17), a student in Islamabad. "Why are my brothers allowed outside in the evenings and I am not? All I want is more freedom."
Muslim clerics and conservative politicians say they are protecting traditions and guarding against what they call the "free sex" culture of unwed mothers and widespread divorce in the West.
Maulana Rahat Hussain, a senator in the Pakistani parliament from religious party Jamiat e Ulema e Islam, says laws criminalising extramarital sex also defend God's will. "Islam has its special laws about adultery and extramarital sex, and nobody has the authority to bring any sort of change in those laws."
When asked if the laws came down harder on women than men, the senator said: "Many good laws can be misused."
He dismissed critics of the laws as "non-profits and westernised women working for so-called women rights". These people, he said, were motivated by "getting funds from international donors and invitations for free foreign trips".
In 1979, military dictator Gen Mohammed Zia ul-Haq enacted strict laws on rape, adultery and sex before marriage.
By 2006, under pressure from human and women's rights groups at home and abroad, parliament amended the laws. The most notable change was that women alleging rape were no longer required to provide four male witnesses.
But at the same time, conservative religious factions succeeded in inserting into the penal code laws against "fornication", including the "abductions for sex" charge.
In Rawalpindi, Arshad now lives in a shelter with guards out front and bars on the doors and windows. Judges send women here after their court proceedings to make sure they have a place to live, safe from enraged husbands or brothers. But the women are forbidden to go out.
More than 1,000 women live in these provincial government-run shelters, many of which have opened in the past two years.
Last year, more than 3,000 women sought help at the national government's Benazir Bhutto women centres. In 2005, there were 10 of these centres for women fleeing abusive homes. Today, there are 25, and the government said it plans to raise the number to 55 in coming months.