BREAKING: Pakistan court discharges, acquits rapist after deal to marry victim

A 25-year-old man, Dawlat Khan, convicted for rape has been freed by a Pakistan court after he married his victim in a out-of-court settlement.

The settlement was brokered by a council of elders in the northwest of the country, his lawyer said Wednesday, according to AFP.

The decision angered rights activists, who have said it legitimises sexual violence against women in a country where a majority of rape goes unreported.

Khan was sentenced in May to life imprisonment by a lower court in Buner district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province for raping a deaf woman.

He was, however, freed from prison on Monday after the Peshawar High Court accepted an out-of-court settlement agreed by the rape survivor’s family.

“The rapist and the victim are from the same extended family,” Amjad Ali, Khan’s lawyer, told AFP.

“Both families have patched up after an agreement was reached with the help of local jirga (traditional council),” he added.

Khan was apprehended after his unmarried victim gave birth to a baby earlier this year, and a paternity test proved he was the child’s biological father.

Rape is notoriously difficult to prosecute in Pakistan, where women are often treated as second-class citizens.

According to the Asma Jahangir Legal Aid Cell — a group providing legal assistance to vulnerable women — the conviction rate is lower than three percent of cases that go to trial.

Few cases are reported because of the linked social stigma, while inadequacies during investigations, low quality prosecutorial practices, and out-of-court settlements also encourage abysmal conviction rates.

“This is effectively the court’s approval of rape and facilitation of rapists and rape mentality,” Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir, a lawyer and human rights activist, said of the Peshawar court decision.

“It is against the basic principles of justice and the law of the land which does not recognise such an arrangement,” she said.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said it was “appalled” by the ruling.

“Rape is a non-compoundable offence that cannot be resolved through a feeble ‘compromise’ marriage,” the group tweeted.

In rural Pakistan, village councils known as jirgas or panchayats are formed of local elders who bypass the justice system, although their decisions have no legal value.