Showing grave concern over the recent hike in incidents of violence against women in Sindh, the Sindh Commission on Status of Women (SCSW) has sounded the alarm for urgent action and commenced several initiatives to end intolerance and violence in the province.
The commission called upon Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah to speed up the process of approving the laws reviewed by the SCSW by placing them on the agenda of cabinet meetings on a priority basis so that implementation of pro-women laws could be become easy.
In a statement released on Friday, the commission strongly condemned the alleged forced conversions of minor girls Reena and Raveena from Hinduism to Islam and their underage marriages.
“There is no place in Sindh for such acts of cowardice committed in the name of religion. The SCSW will hold consultations with the relevant stakeholders in Sindh on a law to deter the horrifying trend of forced conversions in the province,” it said.
The SCSW also called upon the civil society to come forward and support the commission for running an effective awareness-raising drive all over Sindh. The commission is in the process of ironing out the logistics of a training programme and will soon start a training of Nikkah khuah, pandits and pastors for effective implementation of the Sindh Child Marriages Restraint Act.
It also noted an alarming trend that these conversions were largely of underage girls who were taken away from their families and then reappeared as someone’s wife. “The law of Sindh clearly prohibits underage marriages. Conversion to Islam under such suspicious conditions is rightfully sparking concern in the Hindu community in the province. Moreover, it is a gender issue with women’s bodies being used to exercise religious power,” it said.
“The religion of Islam does not accept forcible conversions, and this lesson should be drilled in by local Muslim clerics and mosque Imams. Removing underaged girls from their homes, separating them from their parents, and then marrying them to much older men against the wishes of their parents are all acts against the teachings of Islam,” the commission said.
It added that forcibly converting anyone was a criminal offence as it infringed upon the right to practise one’s religion freely, as enshrined in the country’s constitution. The commission stressed the importance of sensitisation training of police officers, saying that recent cases of gender-based violence had again highlighted the need for it.
“The police must be sensitised to be receptive to complains of forced conversions and not to belittle the issue. The police is the first line of defence against criminal elements and exploitation of religious sentiments is a serious offense that the police can prove to be an effective deterrent against.”
