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Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government’s Anti-Rape Ordinance 2020
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I am inspired by Imran Khan’s consistent stance on the rule of law: Bokhari
Published: April 11, 2021 10:14
Mehr Tarar, Special to Gulf News
Minister Farogh Naseem and Barrister Maleeka Bokhari
In January 2018, the rape and murder of the six-year-old Zainab Ansari unleashed waves of grief, horror and anger across Pakistan. Reports of more rapes and murders of children continued to appear. The helpless pain and rage continued to simmer.
Zainab Ansari
The September 2020 gang rape of a woman stranded on Sialkot-Lahore motorway shook Pakistan from its apathetic stance on sexual violence against women. The woman who was beaten and raped in front of her children became the tragic rallying sign for the imperativeness of steps for prevention of rape and certainty of punishment.
In December 2020, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government’s landmark bill for protection of rights of victims and survivors of sexual violence, sexual abuse and rape and the certainty of punishment titled the Anti-Rape (Investigation & Trial) Ordinance, 2020 was approved by President of Pakistan Dr Arif Alvi. Also approved was an amendment in the Pakistan Penal Code, titled Criminal law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020.
The Anti-Rape (Investigation & Trial) Ordinance, 2020, and Criminal law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020, when implemented in their true letter and spirit, will be the game-changing legislation for dispensation of justice to all victims of sexual violence or rape.
Barrister Maleeka Bokhari is the chairperson for the Special Committee on Implementation of the Anti-Rape (Investigation & Trial) Ordinance, 2020.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Member of National Assembly Barrister Maleeka Bokhari is known for her articulate and fiery defence of her government on prime time talk shows. What Bokhari, as visible in her tweets, is also known for is her constant stance of equality and equal opportunities for women.
Bokhari since 2012 has given legal advice to her party. She is also part of the team of lawyers in some key PTI cases, including the Panama case, and the Judicial Commission on General Elections 2013. Bokhari says, “I am inspired by Imran Khan’s consistent stance on the rule of law, in particular, his stance of equal application of the law irrespective of social status and class.”
As the Parliamentary Secretary for Law and Justice, Bokhari represents the Ministry of Law and Justice in parliament; her principal responsibility is to respond to all questions and legislative business in parliament. Bokhari in a question about her work says, “I was responsible for the passage of the Islamabad High Court Amendment Bill, and I was part of the team that got the FATF laws passed in September 2020. I have also been part of the team that drafted the Legal Aid and Justice Authority Act 2019, Enforcement of Women’s Property Rights Act 2019, and the Letters of Administration and Succession certificates Act 2019.”
An interview with Maleeka Bokhari follows on Gulf News...
EU unveils 5-year plan to fight human trafficking, fraud, online predators
By Clyde Hughes
The EU strategy includes criminalizing services that take advantage of trafficking victims, eliminate ways criminals use the Internet to make money for those services and improve assistance to potential victims. File Photo by symbiot/Shutterstock/UPI
April 14 (UPI) -- The European Union on Wednesday announced a five-year plan to expand policing and fight organized crime that's involved with human trafficking, fraud and cybercrime.
The European Commission outlined the plan, which seeks to nab high-level offenders for crimes like human trafficking, money laundering and fraud related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The commission said human trafficking nets about $35 billion per year and the coronavirus pandemic and more sophistication online has made it more difficult to fight.
"Fighting trafficking in human beings is part of our work toward building a Europe that protects," Margaritis Schinas, vice president of Promoting Our European Way of Life, said in a statement.
"We are taking a three-pronged approach, using legislation, policy and operational support and funding in tandem to reduce demand, break the criminal business and empower victims of this abominable crime."
The report said 60% of repatriated victims of human trafficking in the EU in 2017 and 2018 were involved in sexual exploitation. Another 15% involved labor exploitation. It also noted that women and girls made up 72% of exploited victims.
The new strategy includes criminalizing services that take advantage of trafficking victims, eliminate ways criminals use the Internet to make money for those services and improve assistance to potential victims.
"Trafficking in human beings is a crime that should have no place in our societies," EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said.
"We owe the victims protection, and we need to bring to justice the perpetrators who treat human beings as a commodity."
And will you be working with the various web-hosting services and social media platforms, or against them?
France finally outlaws sex with children under 15 after Duhamel-Kouchner incest scandal reignites age-of-consent debate
16 Apr, 2021 05:36
FILE PHOTO © Reuters / Pascal Rossignol
French lawmakers have adopted a law cracking down on sex with children and incest, following a social media firestorm touched off by allegations of incestuous abuse against a prominent intellectual earlier this year.
The Assemblee Nationale voted unanimously on Thursday to set the age of consent at 15, classifying sex with children under that age – as well as incestuous sex with anyone under 18 – as rape, punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
“This is a historic law for our children and our society,” Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti told lawmakers, adding that it sends a clear message that “children are off-limits.”
The law also includes tougher penalties on internet pedophilia, with anyone caught grooming children under 15 online facing 10 years in prison and a €150,000 (approximately $180,000) fine. Previously, French prosecutors could only bring charges of rape or sexual assault if they could prove an adult forced, threatened or tricked a minor into sex.
The new law did carve out an exemption for consensual relations between a minor and a young adult up to five years older – a so-called 'Romeo and Juliet' clause, named after the teens in William Shakespeare’s famous tragedy. Dupond-Moretti defended its inclusion, saying he did not want “to put a youth of 18 on trial because he had consensual sex with a girl aged fourteen-and-a-half.”
A previous attempt by French lawmakers to set the age of consent floundered in 2018. It was inspired by the case of a 28-year-old who was caught having sex with an 11-year-old girl, but was initially not charged with rape. The new law was driven in part by a book published in January this year, however.
In ‘La Familia Grande’, Camille Kouchner accused her stepfather Olivier Duhamel of having abused her twin brother for years, starting when he was 14. She also claimed her mother’s “leftist intellectual friends” – as France24 put it – knew about the abuse, but kept it quiet. The conspiracy of silence apparently included her own father, former foreign minister and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) co-founder Bernard Kouchner.
Frédéric Mion quits French university job over handling of the Olivier Duhamel affair (4th story on link)
Duhamel, a prominent political scientist and TV pundit, has since resigned from public life. Earlier this week, French media reported he had confessed to the abuse to police.
Kouchner’s book prompted a Twitter user to publish their own accusation of incestuous abuse with a hashtag #MeTooInceste, which has since gone viral in France.
Several Republican states have been pushing back against the LGBTQ influence in school systems which attempt to cut parents' authority in deciding what is healthy education for their children.
Controversial bill in Arizona may give control of sex-ed
back into the hands of parents
16 Apr, 2021 15:31
FILE PHOTO © Reuters / Gleb Garanich
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey is deciding whether to sign a bill requiring parents to opt in to classes teaching their children about “gender identity” and “sexual orientation.” Opponents say the bill is anti-LGBT.
Protesters gathered outside the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, on Thursday, demanding Ducey veto a controversial sex education bill passed this week by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature. SB 1456 would allow parents to review the state’s sex education curriculum and opt out of having their children learn about “gender identity or gender expression,” HIV and AIDS or “sexual orientation.”
The opt-in would extend beyond sex education classes and into any subject touching on these issues – for example a history class discussing homosexuality in ancient Greece, or the 1969 Stonewall Riots, considered the start of the ‘gay liberation’ movement.
Liberal parents at the protest told Fox 10 that the bill would “harm” LGBT kids and make them feel unwelcome in school. Democrats in the state have vocally opposed the bill too, with the Democratic minority in the state Senate claiming it would “further push already marginalized people from resources,” and progressive activist Alison Macklin describing it to AP as “a subliminal way of trying to get anti-homosexual legislation put in, by saying you can’t speak or talk about it in schools.”
Yet, like all hot-button culture-war issues in the US, opposition is split along ideological lines. Proponents of the Republican-sponsored bill argue that it gives parents oversight over what liberal teachers tell their children in the classroom.
“It is the parent, not the school, that has the ultimate responsibility for guarding the education, health, safety and well-being of their child,” state Senator Nancy Bardo (R) told Fox 10. “[The bill] solely protects a parent’s right to decide when their child is ready for and what their child is exposed to regarding sexual materials at school.”
Arizona is one of five states that already requires parents’ permission before their child attends sex education classes. The new bill would give parents an extra brake, and would require them to opt in twice for their children to receive the full, “gender identity” and all, sex education suite.
Debate over the bill is fierce in a purple state like Arizona, which in 2019 struck down a law that banned any sex education teaching that portrayed homosexuality in a positive light. While Arizona was since the late 1990s a reliable Republican stronghold (no Democrat won a single statewide election there between 2008 and 2018, from gubernatorial races to education board battles), the state narrowly elected Joe Biden in 2020, and a combination of demographic change and suburban voters drifting left has made it more difficult to pass conservative laws in Arizona.
In more reliably red states, legislatures are busy passing similar laws to SB 1456. Idaho passed an almost identical bill last month, which now awaits Governor Brad Little’s signature. Tennessee passed a similar bill this week, which is now making its way to Governor Bill Lee for approval. Montana passed a bill this month that was amended from an opt-in to an opt-out system after complaints from teachers, and Missouri too is considering the opt-in system.
All of these legislative actions fit into a broader Republican pushback against the perceived encroachment of LGBT and transgender ideology in schools. Numerous states have passed laws preventing transgender women from competing against biological women in school and college athletics, while others have moved to forbid doctors from helping minors change their gender.
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