Pakistan drops chemical castration as punishment for serial rapists

Pakistan has removed a clause from a new criminal law that had allowed chemical castration as a possible punishment for serial rapists, a government official said on Friday, reports Reuters. 

"We have amended the criminal law, and decided that the chemical castration clause will be taken out," Maleeka Bukhari, parliamentary secretary on law, told a news conference in Islamabad.

She said the decision was taken after the Islamic Ideology Council, a state-run body that interprets laws from an Islamic perspective, found chemical castration un-Islamic.

The government of Prime Minister Imran Khan hurriedly passed nearly three dozens laws in a joint session of the parliament on Wednesday, including the anti-rape criminal law.

Chemical castration, which is carried out by the use of drugs and is reversible, can be a punishment for some sex crimes in countries including Poland, South Korea, the Czech Republic and some US states.

Khan said last year he wanted to introduce the penalty amid a national outcry over increasing offences and the specific case of a mother of two driving along a major highway who was dragged out of her car and raped by two men at gunpoint.

Fewer than 3 per cent of rapists are convicted in courts in Pakistan, according to the non-profit organisation, War Against Rape.