Day: December 17, 2014

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Need to rid child marriage law of ambiguities stressed

By: Shazia Hasan

KARACHI: Underlining the need to rid the recently enacted provincial law on child marriage of defects and ambiguities, experts named five bright young women ‘Kirans’, or rays, to symbolise hope for a better future of girls in Pakistan. They were speaking at the policy dialogue on the implementation of the Child Marriages Act organised by HANDS and Rutgers WPF in collaboration with the Women Development Department at a hotel here on Tuesday.

“We are to spread the light of awareness of child marriage in our community,” said the first Kiran.

“After receiving training during which we were given the horrifying facts about child marriage and how damaging it is, we went on to discuss these things with the women in our community,” said the second Kiran.

‘Civil society has more resources than the government’
“After discussing with my trainers how to go about my task of spreading awareness, I started with my own family,” said the third Kiran.

“It was easier communicating with our family and class fellows first,” said the fourth Kiran.

“Speaking to the elders in our community was a challenge,” said the fifth Kiran.

Saima Sadaf of Rutgers WPF gave a presentation titled ‘Awareness to Action’ for improving the health and awareness of girls in target areas of Sindh. “We are engaging 650 girls from 16 to 19 years of age who will be referred to as ‘Kiran’. A pool of teachers are receiving training themselves to provide support to these girls,” she said.

Arifa Nazli from the Idara-i-Taleem-o-Aagahi spoke about their web portal ‘End Child Marriage’ for informing the masses about the issue of early marriages. “The portal has links to publication, programmes, campaigns, partners, law and order legislation, media coverage, etc. And we hope to update the info fortnightly,” she said.

Qadeer Baig, country director of Rutgers WPF, shared that so far there were 210 Kirans working in the rural areas of Karachi while 250 were working in Sanghar. “Each Kiran in Karachi has reached some 100 homes already,” he said.

“The British act against childhood marriages has been around since 1939 and we have had it since partition. It is good to know that the Sindh Assembly, too, passed the Child Marriages Act in April but we should make sure that it has no ambiguities so that the people don’t misinterpret it,” said retired Justice Shaiq Usmani.

Explaining a few confusing things in the act, he said: “It is stated that whoever indulges in child marriage is a criminal. But then who is that really? The parents or guardians? The Qazi who performs the nikah? The guests at the wedding? Who? It is important to define who that criminal is because you cannot offend the people, you need their cooperation to implement the law. So more work is needed here.”

Justice Usmani suggested a watchdog body in every district of Sindh. “It could comprise maybe a retired judge, journalist, parliamentarian, etc, to bring any case of child marriage to the magistrate’s notice,” he said.

“I will also advise not to involve religion in this. See, marriage is a contract and only adults have the sound mind and judgement to understand the terms and conditions of a contact. So that should be stressed more. Also look into preventing the wrong older age being written in the nikah papers. What can be done is add a provision of return of the Qazi every month or so to report how many nikahs he has conducted and how old the brides were. Then he may be extra cautious about the girls’ ages.”

Senior country adviser of the Packard Foundation Dr Yasmeen Sabeeh Qazi said that communication was key for implementation.

MPA Irum Azeem Farooque said that implementation required ‘will’. “Only then you’ll find a way,” she said, adding that awareness could be spread through radio or puppet shows in areas where they don’t have television. She also pointed out that it was not just girls who fell prey to child marriages. “Boys too, as young landlords are married to women who are much older than them. Later, they may marry other women closer to their age but that is what goes on with boys. Girls don’t do that,” she said.

Finally, giving her remarks, minister for women development Rubina Qaimkhani, presidin over the dialogue, said: “We should accept the fact that civil society has more resources than the government. It is also civil society that does the hammering on government departments to keep them moving in the right direction. I want our civil society to work at the grass-roots level on spreading awareness as we in the government don’t have many people to do that.”

About the act, she said: “When the Child Marriages Act draft came to me, I knew that it deserved priority. When you protect your children and raise your voice for their rights then you are serious about your progress.”

She thanked her opposing parliamentarians, especially Irum Farooque, for supporting her in getting the bill passed in the provincial assembly. “Such joint efforts leave a fine impact,” she said.

The training of police to implement the law was also important, she said. “This is a sensitive bill as the parents of a girl are involved in her marriage. How can a girl want to see her parents being punished? Still punishment is necessary to set a precedent,” she said.

DAWN

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Listen to Malala’s message

By: Talat Masood

The writer is a retired lieutenant general of the Pakistan Army and served as chairman of the Pakistan Ordnance Factories Board

Our leaders have a lot to learn from Malala Yousufzai. She is clearly one of the most powerful messengers in raising awareness about education. “This award is not just for me. It is for those forgotten children who want education”, her words reflect her deep concern for the millions who are out of school. In this hour of darkness, she is a voice of reason and hope. But are we listening? The national and provincial leaderships did congratulate Malala on receiving the Nobel Prize, but Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), the province of her birth and domicile, was miserly and remains divided over paying her the tribute that she so richly deserves. Initially, the ruling party wanted the resolution to be clubbed with the demand for the release of Aafia Siddiqui, who is in prison in the US on charges of murder. Later, when an MPA from the ANP floated a resolution that Malala’s achievement be recognised, it was trivialised by stating that it is “not a matter of national or provincial interest”. It shows how casual and half-hearted is the support for her in the struggle for education. It is depressing that instead of being jubilant on Malala’s recognition as a global icon, there prevails some sort of collective confusion and inferiority complex in our society about her outstanding achievement. If this is the attitude of the provincial government, how can anyone expect that it will provide her security if ever she were to return?

In sharp contrast, as Professor Emeritus Tahir Andrabi of Pomona College in a recent article in The Wall Street Journal points out, “when Malala accepted the Nobel Prize in Oslo, the accompanying pomp and press coverage helped rekindle a global fascination with the fearless young Pakistani activist”. The struggle and the commitment that she brings with her in promoting education worldwide are unparalleled for a girl of her age.

Malala’s message, along with that of joint Nobel Peace Prize awardee Kailash Satyarthi, goes even deeper by identifying some of the underlying causes that are distracting the two nations and particularly Pakistan from investing in education. The perpetual conflict between India and Pakistan is costing the two countries heavily in terms of forcing them to divert meagre resources to defence and depriving the most critical areas in education, health and development of physical infrastructure. At a time when Narendra Modi is stoking Hindu nationalism and Pakistan is bristling with multiple militant outfits and the Line of Control remains volatile, the sobering call of the young Malala and the seasoned Satyarthi are voices of sanity and calm.

The Taliban hate Malala because they are afraid of the message that she is giving to every child of arming themselves by going to school. The Taliban are clever enough to understand that an educated society would be their greatest enemy, especially so if girls are afforded equal opportunities. The enlightened and liberated mind of a girl will be more powerful than any weapon that the Taliban have in their armoury. It will break the walls of ignorance and prejudice and empower women to be equal partners in society.

It is the fundamental responsibility of every leader to promote quality education. One of the major reasons Pakistan lags behind the rest of the world is the denial of education to millions of children and its low quality. Pakistan’s full potential can only be actualised if the state is able to provide an easily accessible system of education that meets at least minimum global standards. After the promulgation of the Eighteenth Amendment, education has become a provincial subject. As provinces are the primary authority now, they should improve the performance of schools through better management and funding through local taxes and subsidies or through grants from the federal government. Public pressure should be built to ensure universal entitlement and improvement in standards. It is reprehensible that 43 per cent of children in Pakistan are in private schools compared with less than one per cent in some of the Scandinavian countries. Only when the system is fair will we be able to produce quality doctors, engineers, scientists, economists and professionals of other disciplines, generating wealth in the country.

The world is going through a revolution in education and spectacular progress has been made that has broken social barriers and provided equal opportunities to millions globally. Our leaders, being half-educated at best, are unable to comprehend the enormous transformational power of education. The PML-N’s project of providing financial resources to the poor so that they could earn a respectable living by starting small businesses or owning a taxi is a good one, but it should not end here as the real enabler that can transform society is education. Pakistan currently ranks 113 amongst 120 countries of the world, with only a 56 per cent literacy rate. According to the World Bank, Pakistan has seven million out-of-school children and two-thirds among them are girls. This is happening despite the fact that parliament, in 2010, passed a constitutional amendment making it mandatory for all children between the ages of five and 16 to attend school. Even by South Asian standards, which are one of the more deficient in the world, Pakistan is at the bottom. No country can bear the burden of such a large percentage of the population being unable to read or write in the present global setting. Pakistan remains exploited by the ruling classes that deny the majority of its population the economic opportunities that open up with education. Our leaders are afraid that if education spreads, then it could become an economic leveler and a precursor to a social evolution. The universalisation of education through a national curriculum that is commensurate with generally accepted standards can transform Pakistan. If Pakistan claims to be a democratic and just society, then it must ensure the spread of education to all tiers of society. This would also be the best way of complimenting Malala’s noble mission.

Express Tribune

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End impunity for violence against women: activists

Parliamentarians and rights activists have underlined the need for ending impunity for violence against women.

They were speaking at a seminar on “Combating Violence: Ending Impunity” organised by the National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW) on Tuesday.

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) Director IA Rehman said that we needed to locate violence against women in the context of violence in Pakistan. He pointed to increased violence against women stating that out of 839 reported cases, 75 per cent of girls were killed on the name of “men’s” honor.

Senator Afrasiab Khattak said that Pakistan should follow the lead of Afghanistan and include women in jirgas. Awami National Party Vice-President Bushra Gohar said jirga should be a consultative forum and should not have judicial power as it does not tackle women issues fairly. She said that women do not have representation in the political system in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

A documentary screened at the session showed that only 11 per cent of married women owned a house in Pakistan.

45 per cent of acid attack victims cannot register cases because of social and political barriers. 79.4 per cent of violence is in the name of intimate partner” said Ms Samar Minallah Khan, Anthropologist and Documentary Filmmaker in her documentary on the Embedded Biases in Culture.

Special Assistant to the PM on Parliamentary Affairs Barrister Zafarullah Khan said that legal aid for the protection of women’s right as well as national women’s empowerment package is in the process of approval from the prime minister.

Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA) President Zia Awan emphasised free legal aid for women and regretted the expenses incurred in court cases.

Minister of State for National Health Services, Regulation and Coordination (NHSRC) Saira Afzal Tarar, who is also an NCSW member, said women were reluctant to go to courts for their rights because of social taboos.

Minister of State of Information Technology and Telecommunication Anusha Rahman said that technology driven crime ranged from pornography, especially child pornography, identity theft (especially for financial gain), hacking, and spyware with intent to harm, to violence against women and girls.

“The challenge of technology-driven violence against women pertains to virtual crime as well as real life crime and there is a need to fight such crimes through policing and judicial process. Women should be careful about sharing their details on the social media,” she said.

The participants also passed a resolution against the Peshawar school massacre.

Express Tribune

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Malala ‘heartbroken’ by school killings

LONDON: Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai said she was “heartbroken” by the “senseless” killing of more than 100 schoolchildren on Tuesday in Peshawar.

“I am heartbroken by this senseless and cold blooded act of terror in Peshawar,” she said in a statement.

“I condemn these atrocious and cowardly acts and stand united with the government and armed forces of Pakistan whose efforts so far to address this horrific event are commendable.”

Seventeen-year-old Malala, who now lives in Britain, became a global icon after she was shot and nearly killed by the Taliban in Swat in October 2012 for insisting that girls had a right to an education.

DAWN

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Saving second wives

By: Rafia Zakaria

THE title of the report is Equal and Free and by this selection it underscores its point: that the approximate 20,000 Muslim women living in the United Kingdom in polygamous marriages are neither.

Produced by a British-South Asian women’s organisation named Aurat, the report details the experiences of 50 Muslim women who are or have been a part of polygamous marriages. Presented in the House of Lords last week, its findings are predictably dismal: few of the 50 women recognised their rights under either Islamic or British law; many reported never having been consulted prior to second marriages; and nearly half complained that they received no support from their polygamous husbands.

Saving Muslim women, whether or not they are in polygamous relationships, is a popular cause in the Western world, where mainstream politicians can stack up their support behind the female half of a Muslim minority while still profiling and heaping suspicion on the male portion.

Know more: Inside polygamy: Reader response

Polygamy and honour crimes are recurrent favourites; neglected as issues by minority Muslim communities themselves, they provide prominent pulpits on which the need for reform within Muslim communities can be proclaimed. It’s a tricky mix, not least because the issues themselves, particularly the culturally imposed subservience and marginalisation of women, are so real, their victims hapless and routinely denied dignity or justice by their own.

The Aurat report lays out just this tense conundrum between Muslim women in diaspora, the Western politicians who want to save them and the rest of the Muslim world that largely ignores them. The details of the reported cases are all damning. A woman named Madiha complains how she did not figure out that her husband was already married until he persistently refused to introduce her to his family. Another woman named Durdanah complains that her husband went off and married a much younger woman without her permission. When she objected, she was told that she had to accept the situation because it was his right to take a second wife.

Women must be informed that they can refuse polygamous arrangements by the insertion of an anti-polygamy clause in their nikahnamas.

The stories will be familiar to Pakistani readers, but added complications exist in the British context because British law does not recognise polygamous marriages. In many cases, therefore, the second, third or fourth wives have no legal status and no way to petition for support or rights under British law in the event of a divorce.

Surreptitious nikah ceremonies are the norm even though they bestow no legal status. Children from such marriages face further problems unless their mothers go through paternity testing and demand support from them on that basis.

The cumulative consequence is legal limbo; the rights owed them under Islamic law cannot be enforced because the community lacks the will and the power to do so. Similarly, their rights under British law remain suspended because as second, third or fourth wives, they have no legal status. Nearly all the 50 interviewed said they did not believe that the community would help them in the case of divorce or the non-payment of support.

All the problems shipped abroad have their origins at home. The precarious status of easily discarded wives, failures of enforcement of support, unilateral right to divorce are endemic in Pakistan. Deemed a non-issue for anyone except the women who face them (and who are too politically weak and socially underprivileged to take them up in any public forum), they proliferate abuse and injustice within families across the country without anyone to stop them.

The British-Muslim context provides a different if just as self-serving a solution: Baroness Cox who championed the report demanded a blanket ban on all Sharia. A charge against polygamy and its abuses thus morphs into an argument to deny group rights and religious recognition to the whole British Muslim community, a consequence that would render illegal all Islamic marriage contracts, including ones that forbid polygamous marriages.

In an arrangement of rights that has yet to yield any robust form of integration for British Muslims, a false choice is manufactured between religious identity and national identity, between being British and being Muslim, requiring the abandonment of one or the other.

As with the veil, then, polygamy ends up in the lot where Muslim women championing equal rights are forced to align either with the minority Muslim community that would like its cultural and religious distinctions recognised by the majority or with the mainstream British discourse that wants to paint the entire British Muslim minority as backward, retrogressive and misogynistic.

In many ways, it is this stark political choice that plays its own part in promoting the silences that allow the perpetuation of polygamy in Britain. Many British Muslim women facing abusive polygamous situations refuse to speak out because they believe they will be participating in the demonisation of British Muslim men were they to do so. Similarly, others find themselves agreeing to polygamous marriages because they believe them to be invested with a greater degree of religious legitimacy, a more authentically Islamic lifestyle than monogamy.

In the end, if the goal is empowerment the method must be education. Muslim women, whether in Pakistan or the UK, must be informed that they can refuse polygamous arrangements simply by the insertion of an anti-polygamy clause in their Islamic marriage contracts or nikahnamas. Men entering into marriage contracts can further be required to vouch that they are not already married, thus ensuring that they can be prosecuted for fraud if a previously existing marriage is later discovered.

The problem of polygamy, of women tricked into being secondary wives, of women abandoned without recourse and all the many variants of abuse that one finds in a plural marriage, can all be avoided only if tools from both faith and law are put to the task of empowerment and consequent elimination of the practice.

The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy. rafia.zakaria@gmail.com

DAWN

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