Fair trial concerns plague Pakistan sexual assault cases
PAKISTAN - Imran Ali, 24, was executed on October 17, 2018, for the rape and murder of a six-year-old Pakistani girl. But a year after his execution, questions remain whether Ali received a fair trial in what became the country’s most highprofile child and sexual assault case in more than two decades. Ali, a daily wage labourer, was arrested after the rape and murder of Zainab Ansari, a case that generated outrage across Pakistan and quickly saw an angry populace - and Ansari’s family - demanding he be hanged in public.
In a country where investigations and legal cases usually last for years, and sometimes decades, Ali was arrested, tried and sentenced in less than a month. The trial lasted four days.
Lawyers say that while Pakistan’s laws in this area have been strengthened, given systemic weaknesses, two almost paradoxical situations coexist: it is difficult to prosecute alleged harassers and abusers, but if public outcry is generated around complaints it is also simultaneously often difficult for them to receive a fair trial.
Ali’s case is emblematic of the problems Pakistan’s legal and investigative systems pose when it comes to cases of sexual assault. Similar issues are reported from across the South Asian region, including India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal.
Since 2004, there have been four executions in India. Of these, one was for the rape and murder of a teenage girl. Sri Lanka has not executed prisoners in years, as the last hanging in the country was over three decades ago. In Pakistan, meanwhile, 18 people have been executed after being convicted of rape, sometimes with additional charges such as murder, since 2015.
Zainab, the youngest of Nusrat and Amin Ansari’s four children, lived in Kasur, about 50km south of the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, the country’s second-largest city.
On January 4, 2018, Ansari was walking down the lane near her home on her way to Quran reading classes when she disappeared, minutes after leaving her house.
Family members searched for Zainab all over the city, only to find her body five days later. It had been dumped in a pile of rubbish near their home.
Zainab’s murder came to embody the deeply entrenched issue of child sexual abuse in Pakistan, where nearly 10 cases of child abuse are reported every day, according to child rights organisation, Sahil.
The killing prompted countrywide protests, with Ansari’s family leading calls for Ali who was arrested two weeks after the body was found - to be publicly hanged, well before his trial had even begun.
(Al Jazeera)