Islamabad: Pakistan’s president has passed an ordinance aimed at ensuring rape trials are completed within four months, while also setting up a national sex offender registry.
“The President of the country Dr Arif Alvi has approved the Anti-Rape Ordinance 2020,” said a statement from his office on Tuesday, adding that the ordinance will remain valid for 120 days until it needs to be ratified by parliament.
“The ordinance will help expedite [legal] cases of sexual abuse against women and children.”
In respect of first or repeated offenders, the concept of chemical castration has been introduced mainly as a form of rehabilitation, and subject to consent of the convict.
According to the law minister, it is mandatory under the international law to take consent of the convict before castrating him.
He said in case chemical castration was ordered without taking consent, the convict might challenge this before a court of law.
Answering a question, he said if a convict would not agree to castration, he would be dealt with in accordance with the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) under which the court might award him death sentence, life imprisonment or 25-year jail term.
The new ordinance will set up special courts to try cases of sexual abuse of women and children, requiring all proceedings to be completed within four months.
It also establishes a special government cell to expedite the processing of legal cases, giving it the power to intervene and order medical examinations of rape survivors within six hours of a complaint being registered.
A lack of adequate medical evidence has often been at the heart of acquittals in rape cases in the country.
Last month, the government in Punjab province, the country’s most populous, banned the use of the archaic and invasive “two-finger” test by medical examiners to determine whether a woman was raped.
The country’s federal ministry of human rights has also opposed the use of that test.
