ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has said chemical castration should be used to punish rapists, following last week’s headline-grabbing case of the gang rape of a mother in front of her children on a major highway in Punjab province.
If Pakistan enacts laws to make chemical castration of sexual abusers legal, it will join a small group of nations that allow such a punishment, including Indonesia, Poland, Russia, and Estonia, as well as some states in the United States. In 2011, South Korea became the first Asian country to use chemical castration as a punishment.
The procedure involves using a drug to reduce testosterone levels and affect the sex drive.
“Chemical castration should be done on them [rapists],” Khan said in a television interview aired on Monday. “This happens in many countries, I’m reading about it.”
“Or do a surgery so that they can’t do anything more in the future,” he added.
Khan said rape cases needed to be graded in degrees, like murder.
“Whoever is a first degree [rapist], they should be castrated,” the prime minister said. “Do an operation and make them useless.”
