PHC frees rapist after deal to marry victim

Dawlat Khan was sentenced in May to life imprisonment by lower court in Buner for raping a deaf woman

Peshawar High Court (PHC) has freed a rapist after he married his victim in a settlement brokered by a council of elders in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, his lawyer said on Wednesday.

The decision has outraged rights activists, who say it legitimises sexual violence against women in a country where a majority of rape goes unreported.

Dawlat Khan, 25, was sentenced in May to life imprisonment by a lower court in Buner district for raping a deaf woman.

He was released from prison on Monday after the PHC accepted an out-of-court settlement agreed by the rape survivor's family.

Read more: Pakistan's rape problem

"The rapist and the victim are from the same extended family," Amjad Ali, Dawlat's lawyer, told AFP.

"Both families have patched up after an agreement was reached with the help of local jirga," he added.

Dawlat Khan was arrested after his unmarried victim delivered 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 per cent of cases that go to trial.

Few cases are reported because of the associated social stigma, while lapses during investigations, shoddy prosecutorial practices, and out-of-court settlements also contribute towards 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 court decision.

"It is against the basic principles of justice and the law of the land which does not recognise such an arrangement," she told AFP.

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.