With the proliferation of cell phones, the Internet and satellite television to even the poorest corners of the world, an increasing number of Pakistani women are becoming aware of gender inequities that often leave them shamed for life.

Naheed Arshad spent nine months in prison on a charge of adultery after her husband accused her of having an affair. The charge was a disgrace to her, even though she says, “I have done nothing wrong.”

The Washington Post reports that after she was acquitted, Arshad joined thousands of other women living in a growing network of government and private shelters who are so ashamed of the sexual conduct accusations against them, their prospects in life are even more limited.

"More women are aware of their rights" as they join the workforce and become more independent, said Naeem Mirza, program director for the Aurat Foundation, a leading women’s rights organization. But that increase in independence also increases the conflict between men and women.

In Pakistan, a country with a population of 167 million, a key issue is laws and customs governing sexual conduct that sometimes date back centuries. Many Muslim clerics and conservative politicians say the laws are protecting traditions and guarding against what they call the "free sex" culture of unwed mothers and widespread divorce in the West and elsewhere. Those laws criminalize sex outside marriage. Husbands angry at wives who want a divorce, and parents angry at daughters who don’t want to marry the husband their elders have in mind, file hundreds of criminal complaints of illegal sexual behavior each year.

One lawyer who represents female prisoners told the Post that "maybe one in 100 charges are true.”

A recent study by the Aurat Foundation found that about three times a day somewhere in Pakistan, relatives file complaints with police alleging that a daughter or wife has been "abducted with the intent of illicit sexual relations." Although men are also arrested on illicit sex charges, human rights lawyers say that the laws’ impact is typically harder on women, since the stigma attached is far greater for them. Even if there is no successful prosecution, the accusations alone are enough to socially mark a woman.

Hina Jilani, one of the nation’s leading female lawyers and founder of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said: "Even if a woman is finally acquitted … the price she pays through social retribution and honor is heavy.”