Women's Rights

The Indian government is seeking to expedite the implementation of a 2023 law that reserves 33 percent of seats in parliament and state assemblies for women, but has linked the move to a sweeping redrawing of parliamentary constituencies, sharpening political tensions.

“We’re set to take historic steps to empower women,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said before a special sitting of parliament on Thursday as his government introduced three bills to be debated in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament.

While two of the three bills relate to extending the number of women in parliament and state assemblies, a third bill relates to “delimitation”, as the process to redraw parliamentary boundaries based on population is called in India. The bill aims to increase the overall size of parliament from 543 Lok Sabha seats to 850.

The bills are being taken up during a three-day special session and will require a two-thirds majority in both houses to pass. Modi’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA) holds 293 seats in lower house of parliament while a two-thirds majority would require 360 votes.

Women currently account for 14 percent of the Lok Sabha members. “We are all united to give rightful positions to women in India,” Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said on Thursday.

Several Asian countries, including India’s neighbours like Nepal and Bangladesh, have similar quotas for women in national legislatures. India already mandates that one-third of seats be set aside for women in local governing bodies.

Opposition alleges ‘gerrymandering’

While there appears to be broad bipartisan support for putting more women into parliament, opposition parties have raised concerns over changing the voting boundaries, warning it could tilt the political balance in favour of Modi’s Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The BJP draws much of its support from the densely populated north, and critics said expanding seats in parliament would, therefore, benefit it the most. Leaders in southern states, where birth rates have declined more sharply, said a population-based delimitation exercise could increase seats in the north and disadvantage southern regions that have slowed population growth and built stronger economies.

The Indian Constitution mandates that parliamentary seats be allocated by population and revised after each census. However, boundaries have not been redrawn since the 1971 census as successive governments delayed the process.

The government is now proposing that delimitation of new seats be based on the last completed census, in 2011, and come into effect for the next general election in 2029.

But opposition parties want the government to wait for the results of an ongoing census, which was launched this month, a formidable logistical challenge that will take a year to carry out – and even longer for the data to be processed.

The main opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, said that while his Indian National Congress party supports increasing the number of women in parliament, the government’s approach is aimed at consolidating power.

“The proposal that the government is now bringing has no connection to women’s reservation,” Gandhi said in a statement on social media. “It is merely an attempt to seize power through delimitation and gerrymandering.”

Congress parliamentarian Gaurav Gogoi alleged that the intention of the government was not to implement women’s reservation but to introduce delimitation “through the backdoor”, according to a report in India’s Scroll.in website.

Akhilesh Yadav, member of parliament from the Samajwadi Party, asked whether Muslims will be given some kind of reservation within the quota for women, The Indian Express reported.

The BJP pushed back on the criticism, saying it would implement a uniform 50 percent increase in seats across all states and maintain proportional representation nationwide. However, the draft delimitation bill does not explicitly spell this out.

Speaking in parliament, Modi said the legislation is “not discriminatory” and “will not do injustice to anyone”.

But the opposition was not convinced. Some members from southern states turned up in parliament dressed in black as a mark of protest.

MK Stalin, chief minister of the southern state of Tamil Nadu and a rival to the BJP, burned a copy of the bill and raised a black flag in protest, urging people across the state to do the same.

“Let the flames of resistance spread across Tamil Nadu,” Stalin said, accusing the BJP of trying to marginalise the state through redrawn boundaries. “Let the arrogance of the fascist BJP be brought down.”

A Lahore court has ruled in favour of Pakistani singer Ali Zafar in his defamation case against fellow singer Meesha Shafi. On Tuesday, the court ordered Shafi to pay Zafar 5 million rupees ($17,900) in damages.

Zafar sued Shafi for defamation in 2018 after she accused him of sexual harassment in Pakistan’s highest-profile #MeToo case.

What has the court ruled?

The court’s ruling, which has not been released to the public but has been seen by several Pakistani media outlets, states that a 2018 social media post by Shafi and an interview she gave to a lifestyle magazine contained “false, defamatory and injurious imputations” against the plaintiff, Zafar.

The court found that her allegations of sexual harassment of a physical nature had not been proved to be true or shown to be made for the public good, and therefore constituted actionable defamation, according to Pakistan’s leading daily newspaper, Dawn.

The court added that Shafi was to be “permanently restrained from repeating, publishing, or causing to be published, directly or indirectly, the aforesaid defamatory allegations of sexual harassment of a physical nature against the plaintiff, in any form of media”.

This order will be appealed to the High Court, Nighat Dad, the lawyer who represented Shafi in court, told Al Jazeera.

As well as a member of Shafi’s legal team, Dad is the executive director of a nongovernmental, research-based advocacy organisation, the Digital Rights Foundation.

She said: “The appeal is likely to challenge the judgement on several grounds: that the trial court misread and selectively interpreted the evidence, failed to properly consider material evidence presented by Meesha, and overlooked the legal context, particularly that her sexual harassment complaint against Ali Zafar is still pending before the Supreme Court.”

What was the #MeToo case involving Shafi and Zafar?

In April 2018, Shafi, now 44, posted a statement through a series of posts on X, then called Twitter, accusing Zafar of sexually harassing her on multiple occasions.

Shafi wrote: “I have been subjected, on more than one occasion, to sexual harassment of a physical nature at the hands of a colleague from my industry: Ali Zafar.”

Shafi added that she was speaking up as an “empowered, accomplished woman who is known for speaking her mind!”

In her posts, Shafi referred to the global “#MeToo” movement by women and girls against sexual harassment and assault.

The hashtag gained worldwide prominence in 2017 when women in Hollywood and beyond began speaking out in the wake of allegations against the former American film producer and now convicted sex offender, Harvey Weinstein.

Within hours of Shafi’s post, Zafar, now 45, responded on X: “I categorically deny any and all claims of harassment lodged against me by Ms Shafi.”

He added that he intended to take the allegation to “the courts of law” and to address them legally rather than “contesting personal vendettas on social media and in turn disrespecting the movement”.

Shafi and Zafar were once known to be friends and are both prominent figures in Pakistan’s entertainment industry. Both have also made appearances in films outside Pakistan. Shafi even performed a small cameo role in 2003 in a music video for Zafar’s first album.

In April 2018, Shafi spoke about her allegations against Zafar during an interview with fashion and lifestyle magazine Instep Pakistan.

She told the magazine that she had not publicly spoken about the harassment at the time it happened because “I’m a public figure and so is he (Ali Zafar). My thought process was who I am and who he is and what that’s going to lead to. Being ready to talk was far off because it had just happened. I buried it.”

Have other women accused Zafar of inappropriate behaviour?

Yes. Several Pakistani celebrities and public figures posted in support of Shafi online after her 2018 X posts.

Additionally, other women came forward to accuse Zafar of sexual harassment.

They included makeup artist and painter Leena Ghani, who wrote in a statement on X in April 2018 that Zafar had on “several occasions” crossed the boundaries of what is considered appropriate behaviour between friends.

“Inappropriate contact, groping, sexual comments should not fall in the grey area between humour and indecency,” Ghani said.

Maham Javaid, a journalist who now works for The Washington Post, alleged in April 2018 that Zafar had tried to kiss her cousin and pull her inside a restroom in a now-deleted X post.

How has the dispute between Shafi and Zafar unfolded?

The pair have filed a slew of complaints against each other.

In June 2018, Zafar filed his one‑billion‑rupee defamation suit against Shafi. At the time, that was equivalent to more than $8m. It is now equivalent to $3.5m, due to the devaluation of the Pakistani rupee.

Shafi then filed a complaint about the alleged harassment before the Ombudsperson Punjab for Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace, later in 2018.

Her complaint was rejected on the technical grounds that she and Zafar did not have an employer-employee relationship. An appeal is pending in the Supreme Court.

Zafar also filed a separate cybercrime complaint with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in November 2018, alleging that Shafi and others were running a coordinated smear campaign against him on social media.

Based on this report, the FIA filed a First Information Report (FIR) against Shafi and eight others in September 2020 under Pakistan’s Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA).

Those named in the complaint included Ghani, Javaid, comedian Ali Gul Pir and actor Iffat Omar, who had publicly supported Shafi and posted critical comments about Zafar online. The PECA offences they were charged under – criminal defamation provisions covering “offences against dignity” – carried a maximum penalty of three years in prison.

It is not known publicly whether the FIA cybercrime case has reached a verdict.

In September 2019, Shafi filed her own two-billion-rupee civil defamation suit against Zafar in a Lahore court, accusing him of making false allegations about her in the media. Two billion rupees was worth roughly $13m when Shafi filed the suit in 2019; due to the rupee’s steep depreciation, the same amount is now worth about $7m. That case is ongoing.

What has been the response to this week’s defamation ruling?

Actor and television host Iffat Omar, who was also named in the FIA cybercrime case and was also a witness for Shafi in Zafar’s defamation case against her, criticised the court ruling in an X post on Tuesday.

Omar wrote: “People were silenced, pressured, bought, and scared. The entire support system was broken. On top of that, we were accused of running a foreign agenda, of being paid huge amounts in dollars. I said it then, and I say it again – prove it in court. I am ready to open all my bank accounts, everything.”

Last week, Saqib Jilani, another of Shafi’s lawyers, asked the Lahore court to dismiss the defamation lawsuit, arguing that Zafar had not produced any concrete evidence to support his defamation claims.

Also last week, Shafi’s mother, the Pakistani actor Saba Hameed, who has been attending court proceedings in Pakistan while her daughter lives in Canada, told reporters: “We have been fighting this for eight years, and we are not accepting defeat in this matter.”

What happens next?

Shafi’s legal team intends to appeal the defamation ruling in favour of Zafar to the High Court. “This is far from the end of the road,” Dad told Al Jazeera.

She added that other legal actions relating to this are ongoing.

“Meesha Shafi’s original complaint of sexual harassment against Ali Zafar has been pending before the Supreme Court for several years now,” Dad explained, referring to the 2018 complaint dismissed on technical grounds by the Office of the Ombudsperson Punjab for Protection Against Harassment of Women, but which Shafi has appealed.

“Separately, Ali Zafar initiated a criminal case alleging cyber-defamation against Meesha and her witnesses, which also reached the Supreme Court and is currently stayed.”

Dad said that Shafi’s civil defamation suit against Zafar is also still pending.

Why is this significant?

“This ruling risks setting a deeply troubling precedent,” Dad said.

Currently, she said, survivors of sexual harassment face major legal, social and reputational barriers. Decisions like the Lahore court’s recent order are likely to discourage victims of sexual harassment “from speaking out at all”.

“If defamation law is interpreted in a way that punishes speech before underlying harassment claims are even adjudicated, it shifts the burden unfairly onto survivors and reinforces silence over accountability,” Dad added.

“And that is the real danger here.”

In a new report, Doctors Without Borders says sexual violence is the ‘defining feature’ of the conflict in Sudan.

Hanaan was 18 years old when she was raped by members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group accused of committing widespread “war crimes” during nearly three years of fighting against Sudan’s army.

She was walking alongside a female friend to her makeshift home in an encampment for displaced people in South Darfur, when four men on motorbikes stopped them and asked where they were going.

“Two took each girl, and they raped us,” she told Doctors Without Borders, an international medical NGO known by its French initials MSF.

“I feel uncomfortable in my body, heavy. I don’t feel pain, apart from in my back – because they beat me, they beat me with their guns on my back,” she said.

Hanaan – not her real name – shared her testimony as part of a report released by MSF on Tuesday, which details the widespread use of sexual violence as a weapon in Sudan’s ongoing brutal civil war.

The NGO said 3,396 survivors of sexual violence sought treatment in MSF-supported health facilities across North and South Darfur between January 2024 and November 2025.

The data, presented in the report titled, There is Something I Want to Tell You…, was drawn from MSF programmes in just two of Sudan’s 18 states and reflects only a fraction of the crisis, while the true scale of the phenomenon remains unknown.

Women and girls accounted for 97 percent of survivors treated in MSF programmes. The RSF and allied militias were found to be primarily responsible for the systematic abuse.

Children among the survivors

“Sexual violence is a defining feature of this conflict – not confined to front lines, but pervasive across communities,” Ruth Kauffman, MSF emergency health manager, said in a statement.

“This war is being fought on the backs and bodies of women and girls. Displacement, collapsing community support systems, lack of access to healthcare and deep-rooted gender inequalities are allowing these abuses to continue across Sudan.”

Following the RSF’s capture of el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, on October 26, 2025, MSF treated more than 140 survivors fleeing to Tawila. Among them, 94 percent were attacked by armed men, with many reporting assaults along escape routes.

The assaults “deliberately targeted non-Arab communities as a means of humiliation and terror, echoing previous RSF atrocities such as the dismantling of Zamzam camp”, the report said. The RSF took control of famine-hit Zamzam camp in the western Darfur region after two days of heavy shelling and gunfire in April 2025.

Survivors described attacks not only during fighting, but in everyday settings, such as fields, markets and displacement camps.

Children were also among the survivors. In South Darfur, one in five survivors was under 18, including 41 children younger than five, the organisation said.

MSF called on the United Nations, donors and humanitarian actors to urgently scale up health and protection services in Darfur and all of Sudan, and on all parties to the conflict to cease and prevent sexual violence and hold perpetrators accountable.