Tag: Forced marriage

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Child marriage issues highlighted at workshop for police personnel

childbride-Marriages

SHIKARPUR: Speakers at a one-day workshop for police personnel highlighted issues relating to child marriage and discussed ways and means to effectively implement the relevant laws.

The workshop was organised by the National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW) in collaboration with the Save the Children in Shikarpur Gymkhana on Monday.

The speakers observed that underage marriage was a common practice across the country and the known factors appeared to be socio-cultural norms, poverty and a lack of preventive measures supposed to be taken by the relevant authorities. Underage children, specially

girls, are married in the name of socio-cultural norms, against heavy loans obtained by their parents or in compensation/penalty for an offended rival.

They noted that child/underage marriage was prohibited under the Child Marriages Restraint Act, 1929 and the amendment made to it in 2013 but police often did not intervene in most cases.

The participating police personnel were informed that the Sindh Assembly passed another amendment to the law on April 28, 2014 declaring marriage of an under-18 child cognizable offence.

The law prescribes up to three years imprisonment and/or a fine for offenders, including the new couple, their parents and any other person involved. The audience was also informed that anyone could lodge a complaint with a judicial magistrate against such a marriage and the case had to be decided within 90 days.

Iqbal Detho of the Save the Children and Mubashir Soomro of the DevCon and leaders of some other civil society organisations explained the Pakistan Penal Code and the criminal procedure code sections related to the law and urged the police personnel to fully comply with the laws while acting against offenders.

The speakers stressed the need for strictly implementing the law in order to save children from a lifetime syndrome.

Highlighting the repercussions of underage marriages, they said both male and female children suffered physically and psychologically because they appeared not matured at all to maintain the imposed relationship. “This unnatural bond arranged without the consent of the couple sometime turns traumatic for a girl as she is not physically and emotionally mature enough to become a wife or mother,” the speakers said. Even if she was close to adolescence and somehow managed to endure the experience, she was at great risk of suffering serious complications during the maternity process, they added.

Another concerted view of the speakers was that most such children, especially girls, were also vulnerable to domestic violence.

Shikarpur SSP Saqib Ismail Memon said that the conviction rate in such cases as well as those relating to domestic violence and violence against women had remained low in the past and the main reason appeared to be absence of solid evidence or flawed investigation. Stressing the need for proper investigation into such cases, the SSP suggested that provisions and sections of such laws must be made available to police officers in the Sindhi and Urdu languages along with the original script.

He said police also lacked proper equipment and facilities essentially needed to carry out proper investigation.

These reasons ultimately weakened the prosecution, he added.

Daily Dawn

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‘Forcibly converted’ girl sent back to shelter home

Karachi: Anjali Meghwar, a Hindu girl who was allegedly kidnapped in Daharki, forcibly converted, renamed Salma and then married to one of her Muslim kidnappers, was sent back to a shelter home by the Sindh High Court on Friday and the prosecution was told to prove that she was underage before a trial court where her husband was being tried under the child marriages restraint law.

The directives came on a petition filed by Anjali’s father, Kundan Das Meghwar, against the kidnapping, forced conversion and marriage of his daughter and a counter-petition filed by Ramzan Bibi, the mother of Riaz Sial to whom she was married.

On Wednesday, the high court had allowed the girl to live with her spouse as she had refused to go home with her Hindu parents.

Kundan Dad submitted in the petition that her 12½ -year-old daughter Anjali Meghwar was abducted, forcibly converted to Islam and married to one of her Muslim kidnappers, but the Ghotki police were not taking action against the culprits.

His counsel said the petitioner had lodged a case under sections 3 and 4 of the Child Marriages Restraint Act XV 2014, complaining that Siyal, an adult, had married his minor daughter.

Riaz’s mother denied the allegations and submitted that the girl had married her son of her own free will.

The court observed that the girl had stated at all forums that she had not been abducted and eloped with Siyal and married him of her own free will.

The court also observed that she was allowed to meet with her husband and parents separately and then given an hour to think without being disturbed by anyone.

The girl then appeared in the judges’ chamber in the presence of her husband, her parents and their lawyers and stated that she was 18 years old, had reached puberty, married Siyal of her own free will and intended to leave with him.

The court directed the investigation officer to file her statement in the trial court, which was trying the abduction case, as after her denial, the offence became an exercise in futility.

Kundan Das’ counsel pointed out that girl was a minor and according to her father she is only 12½ years old. He added that a case under the child marriages restraint law had already been registered against Siyal and she could not be allowed to leave with her husband.

When the court asked the investigation officer as to whether the girl’s age had been determined by the medical board, the latter submitted that according to its report she was 14 or 15 years.

The court observed that there were three different versions of the girl’s age and she could not be allowed to leave with her husband until this matter became clear as it frustrated the very purpose of the child marriages restraint act.

However, the court also noted that the determination of her age by the SHC would amount to preempting the pending proceedings before the trial court, where Siyal was being tried under the child marriages restraint act.

The court noted that as the girl was unwilling to return with her parents, she would be kept at a shelter home and the prosecution would have to prove her actual age before the court where Siyal was being tried.

Disposing of the petitions, the bench said that in case the girl changed her mind, she could leave with her parents.

The News

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SHC upholds girls’ will in forced marriage case

By Z Ali

HYDERABAD: The controversy surrounding the forced conversion and subsequent marriages of two underage Hindu girls may remain a mystery. Several contradictions in the claims and counter-claims surfaced as the case was being heard at the Sindh High Court Hyderabad bench on Monday.

One of the girls, Mavi Kohli, affirmed her parent’s stance of her abduction, forced marriage and conversion. The other girl, Badal Kohli, however denied any coercion in her marriage and acceptance of Islam. Both were allegedly kidnapped from their katcha homes in Arain village, Badin district, by local influential landlords in the last week of November. But the Arains claim otherwise.

The parents of Mavi, who was renamed as Hameeda after her conversion, claimed her age was 13 years. However, the court-ordered medical report placed her age between 16 to 17 years. Badal, alias Zeenat, is older.

The SHC order, issued by Justice Azizur Rehman, also reflected the wishes of both the girls against what were the contention of their parents and husbands. Mavi deposed that she was kidnapped, converted and was married at gunpoint to 62-year-old Mir Muhammad Arain. But her elder relative, Badal, stated that she willfully converted and married 26-year-old Khamiso Arain. The court ordered Mavi to go with her parents and Badal with her husband.

The controversy began soon after their alleged abduction when Veenjho Kohli and Shambho Kohli registered FIRs against the Arains at Tando Ghulab Laghari Police Station. The Kohlis also mobilised social support from among their community to retrieve their girls.

The All Pakistan Hindu Panchayat condemned the incident and demanded justice.

A team of over half a dozen Hindu lawyers reportedly provided voluntary services to fight the case on behalf of the Kohlis, who were the respondents in the case.

The separate, yet simultaneous, petitions were filed on December 1, 2014, by Khamiso and Mir Muhammad who accused the Kohlis of harassment and forced attempts to retrieve the girls.

“We have been working as peasants of these influential people for the last several decades,” said Veenjho. “They keep exploiting us one way or other.”

The stance of Shambho, Badal’s father, was the same as Mavi, though his daughter denied the Kohlis’ accusations. “My daughter has given her statement [in the court] under duress. She has been threatened with dire consequences against her and her family,” he had claimed, while speaking to the media after the last hearing on December 18, 2014.

At the last hearing, Badal was allowed to live with her husband. Justice Zafar Ali Rajput, who heard the case, ordered Mavi to stay at Darul Aman until the judgment.

However, Mavi prayed to the court to let her live with her parents. A surety of Rs500,000 was later submitted by her father to take her home.

For his part, Khamiso, claimed that his wife, Badal and Mavi, had both converted to Islam of their own free will. Mavi was married to an older man because no other person was willing to keep her at their home fearing backlash from the family, he added.

Express Tribune

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Two girls kidnapped for forced marriage

childbride-Marriages

PESHAWAR: Two girls were kidnapped from Chamkani and Khazana for forced marriages, police said on Monday.In Chamkani, one Ghulam Nabi lodged a case accusing Fazal Amin of kidnapping his daughter Kainat. Also, Siddiq got registered a first information report that Noor Alam and others had kidnapped his daughter Uzma for marriage.

The News

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The parallel justice system in rural Pakistan – a close scrutiny

By: Neha Ansari

KARACHI: The council of elders, or jirga/panchayat, is believed to offer cheap and speedy justice in rural Pakistan. Yet, this is not what always happens. Last month, one such village council ordered the gang rape of one woman in a hamlet near Muzaffargarh, Punjab. She wasn’t raped because she asked for pardon – although she was stripped and humiliated.

Mukhtaran Mai’s gang rape was also ordered by a panchayat in Meerwala, also in Muzaffargarh, in 2002.

The logic: avenge dishonour with dishonour.

“If they are providing justice, then why is the punishment only geared towards women?” asks Samar Minallah, a rights activist who was the petitioner of a public-interest litigation in the Supreme Court against such councils. “The case is still pending, but the top court [in one of its rulings] has declared jirgas illegal.”

Neither is there any provision in the Pakistan Penal Code that allows the panchayat, nor is there any special regulation on it in Punjab body of law.

Be it panchayats in Punjab, jirgas in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, and faislo and sulh in Sindh, these are all non-institutional, parallel mechanisms for the settlement of disputes, with punishments usually targeting women.

However, in the tribal areas, jirgas are the judiciary. With no formal court system, the tribal elders – given the title of Maliks – and the leader of a jirga who hears the arguments of the plaintiffs, the jirgamaars, assemble to resolve the dispute or conflict at hand. Jirgas are enshrined in the body of law that governs the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) – the Frontier Crime Regulation, 1901.

Similar to the Muzaffargarh panchayat ruling, a jirga in Darra Adam Khel ordered the execution of three women after one of them ‘dishonoured’ the family. The girl, her mother and her cousin were shot dead in cold blood.

One tribal elder from Kurram Agency contended that Fata’s seven tribal agencies are different from each other. “Darra Adam Khel has a low literacy rate and they prefer to give jirga rulings based on their tribal laws,” explained Haji Ghulab, who is a member of the Grand Jirga in Kurram.

Moreover, he claimed that extreme punishments are given only in extreme situations. “Jirgas only order murder in a conflict that has claimed many lives or has been going on for many years.” Does the practice of Swara – the marriage of young girls to settle blood feuds – come under extreme measure? “Yes, it does,” he responded. “If the two sides become relatives, they will not kill each other or continue the conflict.”

He quickly added, “But the practice seldom takes place. And we have to convince the girl first.” This was a surprising response, but he explained the logic. “The jirga decision won’t work out if the girl is not willing to marry.”

But Minallah, who has supported and even sheltered Swara ‘victims’, argued that many of them are seen as the enemy after the ‘forced marriage’. “These girls are told by their in-laws that their faces remind them of the crime committed by their sons or brothers,” she said. They are never accepted and their lives are ruined, she maintained.

Tribal elders do admit that it is not a perfect system, just like the judiciary and court system. “Bad decisions are made sometimes. But not all jirgas make unfair decisions. It’s only the ones that adjudicate murder and rape cases that make the news,” said Malik Khanijan Afridi, a tribal elder from Khyber Agency.

Jirgas are formed by members of society, who are corrupt, take bribes and are biased towards their tribe or biraadri. “However, it’s a system that involves mediation, arbitration and consensus-building. It works in the absence of courts,” defended Afridi.

“We have ordered murder, mostly of men,” Afridi admitted, but quickly clarified, “It’s rare. You need to understand that the point of giving these verdicts is to end conflict and resolve disputes.”

Under FCR, there is allowance for the political administrators, who have magisterial authority, to dissolve the jirga if its ruling does not have consensus, or it causes outcry, or someone files an application to him, or he is not satisfied with the decision. “Therefore, there is room for a kind of appeal and make amends,” explained Haji Ghulab. There have been instances when there were complaints about some jirga members for being greedy for money and irresponsible, who were later dismissed.

However, panchayats, faislos and Balochistan jirgas do not have similar provisions as it is an informal system.

The only possible solution: accountability. “Those who give unfair rulings must be held accountable and punished,” suggested Minallah. That is the only way that those who claim to be the custodians of justice do not establish their own fiefdoms of absolute power.

Express Tribune

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