"Honor" Rapes

Salman Rushdie writing in the Sikh Times , reports:

In honour-and-shame cultures, such as those of India and Pakistan, male honour resides in the sexual probity of women, and the 'shaming' of women dishonours all men. So it is that five men of Pakistan's powerful Mastoi tribe were disgracefully acquitted of raping a villager named Mukhtar Mai three years ago. Theirs was an 'honour rape,' intended to punish a relative of Ms. Mukhtar for having been seen with a Mastoi woman. The acquittals have now been suspended by the Pakistan Supreme Court, and there is finally a chance that this courageous woman may gain some measure of redress for her violation.

Pakistan, however, has little to be proud of. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says that there were 320 reported rapes in the first nine months of last year, and 350 reported gang rapes in the same period. The number of unreported rapes is believed to be much larger. The victim pressed charges in only one third of the reported cases, and a mere 39 arrests were made. The use of rape in tribal disputes has become, one might say, normal. And the belief that a raped woman's best recourse is to kill herself remains widespread and deeply ingrained.

Rushdie goes on to describe the situation in India which apparently is no better in the Muslim provinces there than it is in Pakistan. There is the Indian national law and then there is Muslim law. The former is disregarded in favor of the latter:

Such is the historical confusion on this vexed subject that anyone who suggests that a democratic country should have a single, unified legal system is accused of being anti-Muslim and in favour of the hard-line Hindu nationalists.

Unbelievable! I must admit to having great difficulty feeling much sympathy for Muslims after reading such an article, but the problem, I think, is more about fundamentalism than it is about the Muslim faith, per se.

Prayer in the schools, anyone?