The Public Toilet

Our ‘able’ leaders and law-making agencies

“The federal cabinet on Wednesday approved a draft bill seeking amendments to the country’s family laws with a view to enabling women who are married as minors to settle long-running family feuds to obtain divorce upon reaching puberty�. For details about the bill, click here.

How noble of the government and our law making agencies to think on this issue. But are they not also allowing minor marriages and the use of girls for settling “long running family feuds� in this bill?

This bill seems as legalizing the act of parents/guardians pushing their minor daughters into marriage for settling family feuds (or accepting/declaring it legal under law). The bill also has the complete backing of the government; federal minister of parliamentary affairs Dr. Shah Afghan clearly stated that the bill provided “no punitive action against those who married under-age children to settle family feuds… (this bill) only gave women a right to divorce upon reaching puberty� (same news article). Kudos to our leaders for trying out new ideas. They are encouraging tribal lords to seek alternative solutions to their tribal disputes like giving away their child daughters to get abused and molested at the hand of other tribes, in the name of marriage, and later their daughter could get a divorce upon reaching puberty (and this last part guaranteed by the bill). This would definitely cut the tribal fights and crime rate. Very noble indeed on our government’s behalf.

Even if the bill were introduced with honest and sincere intentions, how many of such women would actually exercise this right upon reaching puberty? Even if they do how many would successfully escape their tribal environment and survive? Would they be better off practicing this right or letting things free-flow? The stubborn traditional sector of our society toward whom this bill is directed, will this bill change the way things work for them? If Pakistan’s law enforcing authorities still have not stopped honor killing or women killed under Karo-Kari rule, how will they ever be successful in implementing this bill? They can not.

Answer to all these questions is clearly ‘NO’ and the concerned authorities, law-making agencies, and the government know this. Why make the fuss then? To appease a couple of NGOs may be, working for female rights. Run by wives of the landlords and bureaucrats, these NGOs will now have something to prove to their sponsors that they are not sitting idle. So this bill also means more money for them.�