On a recent visit to Adiala Jail, I met some of the women on death row for murder. Their stories were understandably harrowing but what was particularly painful was their treatment under the current criminal laws on murder. Pakistani legal system is deficient in addressing miscarriage of justice in matters pertaining to women who kill their abusive partners. This is an area ripe for reform since no society can claim to serve its people when victims of violence are convicted as murderers.

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Pakistan has long been accused of falling short of addressing patriarchy and uprooting societal misogyny. This reality has profound consequences for Pakistani Women accused of crimes carrying capital punishment as well as the country’s international soft power. One of the areas where this is most problematic and pronounced is criminal law on women who kill their husbands as a consequence of prolonged abuse. Unfortunately, such women fall outside the ambit of the legal definition of self-defence in Pakistan.

The Pakistan Penal Code in its Section 100 provides that, ‘the right of private defence of the body extends to causing death.’ It further sets out the instances attracting this right which do not encompass self-defence in response to prolonged abuse. The Code itself is out-dated and in a dire need of reform.

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It is apparent on a plain reading of the Code that no right to self-defence exists for women driven to kill their perpetrator rather than be killed by him. This strongly suggests a failure by the legislature to grasp the gendered nature of violence against women and an unfortunate adherence to stereotypes about how victims of abuse ought to behave continue to inform decisions by judges and law makers.

Unlike men who kill their female partners (where the killing is the culmination of their increasing abuse and control of the female partner), it is often after being subjected to prolonged and increasing coercive control, that women are driven to kill. Conversely, men can rely on an extra defence of grave and sudden provocation to get a free out of jail card, as demonstrated by the precedent of Muhammad Sharif vs The State 1987 PLD 312 Lahore HC, amongst others.

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Reform must come from the Parliament as no creative statutory interpretation can render these laws compatible to offering protection to such women. Section 100 of PPC should be amended to include female victims of prolonged violence who are driven to kill, such that they are not treated as murderers instead supported as victims. The litmus test of a civilised people is how just the society they inhabit is. Now our leaders need to step up to protect victims of abuse, through their actions not mere words.

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