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WOMEN'S INCARCERATION IS OFTEN PRECEDED by physical and sexual abuse in the home. For example, the majority of the women in Indian prisons are rape victims who have been placed in "protective custody" in prison to ensure that they will be present at the trial of the accused rapist. The accused rapist on the other hand is not apprehended, let alone incarcerated. In her study of Canadian women's stories of incarceration, Elizabeth Comack notes a gender bias as well, for she suggests that we view women's encounters with the criminal justice system as a means through which men exercise control over women.1
There is another aspect to women's imprisonment. Prisons frequently resemble poorhouses. As noted criminologist Jeffery Reiman comments about the United States, if you are poor you have a greater chance of being arrested and charged. Money, he argues, provides an enormous advantage with which to manipulate the justice system.2 These comments are certainly true in Pakistan where gender, class, and control of women's bodies appear integrally connected to women's incarceration for zina (illicit sex). Places of incarceration and refuge (in state-sponsored shelters) can, however, become "safe" spaces for many Pakistani women fleeing the wrath of their families. Moreover, the process politicizes many of the women and they question the fundamental principles of their socialization, in particular obedience to their families. In this article, I consider the history and effects of the Zina Ordinance (also known as zina laws), and show how it is the legacy of a particular legal, political, and historical process.
THE ZINA ORDINANCE
The Pakistani constitutions of 1962 and 1973 called for the appointment of a Council of Islamic Ideology to bring existing laws into conformity with Islam. The military regime of General Zia-ul-Haq (1977-1988) took this mandate more seriously than did any of its predecessors and in 1979 promulgated the Hadood Ordinances as a first step toward the process of Islamization.3 The Hadood Ordinances include the Zina Ordinance ("Whereas it is necessary to modify the existing law relating to zina so as to bring it in conformity with the injunctions of Islam as set out in the Holy Qur'an and Sunnah), the Law of Evidence, and the Law of Blasphemy.4
The Zina Ordinance censures and prescribes predetermined punishment for...