Up to 80 per cent of women in Pakistan's jails are charged under rules that penalise rape victims. But hardliners have vetoed an end to the Islamic laws

In the blinding white desert sunlight in a farm courtyard on the outskirts of the ancient town of Shekhupura, Fareeda nervously passes a green silk hijab between her fingers. Unusually for a young Pakistani woman, her fingernails are not pristine and carefully painted but chewed, cracked and grubby.

Fareeda says she feels safe here - a safe house for rape victims run by a local NGO. Littered with rusting motorcycle carcases and parts of discarded fridges and cookers, it feels like a scrapyard.

The story of this 19-year-old's journey here is horrifying. In spring 2005 she was raped by her family's neighbour, a postman, and his teenage son. She fell pregnant - and later miscarried - as a result. Her mistake was to tell her parents. With their consent, under Pakistan's orthodox Islamic laws, she was charged with fornication outside marriage and sentenced to 100 lashes, later reduced to 50 and then 25 because of her age, and sent to jail. After four months her prison ordeal ended when a family friend secretly paid a bribe. Her plight is not unique.

According to a recent report by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a woman is gang-raped every eight hours in the country. However, because of social taboos, discriminatory laws and the treatment of victims by police, campaigners believe the real figure is far higher. Women who report their rapists remain more likely to go to prison themselves than see justice, so most cases are never reported. Women who are raped can face legal difficulties anywhere in the world, but human rights groups remain particularly concerned over Pakistan's record. Their alarm is centred on enforcement of the 'Hudood ordinances', a complex set of Koranic laws whose name is derived from hud meaning 'punishment'. Similar sharia laws have existed in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Sudan for centuries, but Pakistan's were enacted by former President Zia ul-Haq only in 1979, as part of his radical attempt to 'Islamicise' the country.

The legislation has always been full of legal ambiguities, and none more so than the Zina ordinance which deals with adultery, premarital sex and rape. The maximum punishment for adultery is stoning to death for married people and 100 lashes for the unwed.

For a rape trial to go ahead in Pakistan, four adult Muslim men, 'all of a pious and trustworthy nature', must have witnessed the attack and be willing to testify. Evidence from female and non-Muslim witnesses is considered worthless. A woman who can't produce those witnesses can be prosecuted for fornication and alleging a false crime, the penalties for which are stoning, lashings or prison.

Last week, despite claims by President General Pervez Musharraf that he was willing to reform the way rape is handled, as part of his much-trumpeted 'enlightened moderation', hardliners in the Pakistani parliament refused to sanction the introduction of a bill that would have ended the archaic laws. The vetoed legislation, the Women Protection Bill, proposed to transfer rape and adultery cases from the Islamic legal system to Pakistan's British-influenced secular penal code. The bill would have scrapped the most controversial element of the law, the need for four male witnesses. Women's rights campaigners, who marched in their thousands in Islamabad last week, claim that up to 80 per cent of women in Pakistan's jails face charges related to the Hudood ordinances and accuse the international community of ignoring the issue.

Yesterday Pakistan's government announced it would now ask a parliamentary committee to review the repeatedly delayed bill.

Lawyers who handle such cases say the legislation is mainly used as a means of revenge by parents whose daughters have refused arranged marriages, or by husbands in divorce cases. In conservative rural areas, where family honour is paramount, many parents file charges against children who defy tradition to choose their own partners.

'Violence against women is a universal problem,' said Kamila Hyat of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. 'Many governments have taken serious steps to deal with it, Pakistan hasn't. There are thousands of victims of rape and few of them have come close to getting justice; many have been punished for their plight. Simply bringing a rape case to court is widely considered in itself a confession of unlawful sexual intercourse outside marriage.'

But defenders of Hudood claim it is more of a deterrent than anything else, and the penalties are rarely invoked. 'We don't think Hudood laws are against human rights,' said Dr Mirajul Huda, from Jamaat-e-Islami, the biggest group in the six-party Islamist alliance that forced the legislative climbdown. 'They prevent people going to the limits. They put an obstacle on all types of obscenity and protect society.'

For Musharraf, who has survived several assassination attempts since his 1999 military coup and has repeatedly angered Muslim clerics by allying himself with the US, the climbdown is seen as an attempt to placate hardliners. But it plays to fears of what some commentators call a 'creeping Talibanisation' across Pakistan. His supporters claim that Musharraf, who heads a fragile coalition, has taken some action. Several months ago he issued a decree making 1,300 women awaiting trial on Hudood violations eligible for bail, but The Observer has discovered that fewer than 400 of those have been released.

'The ordinance is like a sword hanging over the heads of all the women of Pakistan,' said Dr Rubina Saigol, director of Actionaid Pakistan, which gives shelter and legal support to victims of violence. 'It is tragic that the government has reneged on the reforms. Women's rights are not negotiable.'

For Sharma Zia, another victim in the safe house, it is unlikely the fear of being raped again will go away. 'I know I can't stay here for ever,' she says. 'My home town isn't that far away, but I can't return. The men who raped me live close to my parents and even they took the side of my rapists. My allegations only brought them shame. Sometimes I feel like I only bring people shame. I wish I could leave, go abroad, but I know that will never happen.'