Castration clause removed

PAKISTAN has removed a clause from a criminal law that had allowed chemical castration as a possible punishment for serial rapists, a government official said last Friday (19).

“We have amended the criminal law and decided that the chemical castration clause will be taken out,” Maleeka Bukhari, parliamentary secretary on law, told a news conference in Islamabad.

She said the decision was taken after the Islamic Ideology Council, a state-run body that interprets laws from an Islamic perspective, found chemical castration un-Islamic.

Prime inister Imran Khan’s government hurriedly passed nearly three dozens laws in a joint session of the parliament last Wednesday (17), including the antirape criminal law.

Chemical castration, which is carried out by the use of drugs and is reversible, can be a punishment for some sex crimes in countries including Poland and some US states.

Khan said last year he wanted to introduce the penalty amid a national outcry over increasing offences and the specific case of a mother of two dragged out of her car and raped by two men.