ISLAMABAD: As many as 1,300 women in Pakistan's prisons will be released on bail under an ordinance that President Pervez Musharraf signed on Friday. The law makes all offences by women, except terrorism and murder, bailable.

Describing it as a "momentous day for the women of Pakistan," Women's Development Minister Sumaira Malik said the ordinance would immediately benefit 1,300 women awaiting trial. "In our society with its traditions, it is very difficult for the women, once they have been in prison, to come out and be able to lead normal lives. There are problems about their acceptability by their families," Ms. Malik said at a news conference.

For this very reason, women activists were concerned about the fate of those who will be released under the ordinance. Ms. Malik said that if they did not want to go back to their homes, the Government would house them in shelters and offer them legal aid. The ordinance was "the first step in the legal empowerment" of women, and would change the common perception of Pakistan as a country where women were treated badly. "This firmly puts women back on the map of Pakistan," Ms. Malik said.

Until now, women were jailed commonly on charges of adultery under the 1979 Hudood ordinances. Women who alleged rape but could not prove it with four male witnesses were also imprisoned on adultery charges.

The President wanted to address this issue, and "the fastest and quickest way was the ordinance," she said. The Government was also working towards removing all the "un-Islamic" aspects of the Hudood ordinances, and of all other laws that infringed on women's rights and human rights, in general, in the name of religion.

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