Pakistan police arrest 12 people for ordering 'revenge rape' of alleged rapist's sister

Family members among those detained

Police in Pakistan have arrested 12 people for allegedly ordering a man to rape a girl as revenge for the rape of his sister.

Following the attack, the family of suspected rapist Wasim Saeed – from Pir Mahal in Punjab province – first asked the victim’s family for a pardon, according to police officer Rehmat Ali.

The two sides then agreed to reconcile, with the condition that Mr Saeed’s sister would first be subjected to a “revenge rape”.

The 12 currently being held include members of a village council, elders and family members.

A similar case in the same province last year saw the arrest of 25 members of an informal village council, accused of ordering the rape of a 16-year-old girl as revenge for a sexual assault committed by her brother.

Although they are banned by law, revenge assaults, known as wani, are still practised in some rural areas in Pakistan.

They belong to a centuries-old tradition of quick justice handed down by gatherings of local elders, known as jirgas or panchayats, which are seen by many villagers as preferable to the often cumbersome and corrupt formal legal system.

Last year, Amnesty International called for Pakistan’s authorities to “end impunity for sexual violence” and “crack down on the so-called village councils that prescribe horrific crimes against women and girls, often in revenge for acts committed by others".

“For far too long, there has been an indulgence of these unspeakably cruel practices,” said Nadia Rahman, Amnesty International’s Pakistan campaigner.

The jirgas and the practice of "revenge rape" drew international attention in 2002 when a woman was ordered to be gang-raped by a local council for a male relative's alleged crime.

Mukhtaran Mai took the rare step of filing criminal charges against her attackers and six men were convicted and sentenced to death later that year, although five of them were later freed on appeal.

Despite passing the Punjab Protection of Women Against Violence Act in 2016, violence against women in the province is still rising in Pakistan, according to the Aurat Foundation, which campaigns for female empowerment.

A report by the Human Rights Commission Pakistan welcomed recent signs of progress across the country in the form of laws against violence, rape, “honour” killing and child sexual abuse but warned violence against girls and women was still widespread and rape prosecutions “abysmally low”.

The country is ranked second to last – 143rd out of 144 countries – in the 2017 Global Gender Gap Report by the World Economic Foundation, a position it has held since 2012.

Agencies contributed to this report