Women protection bill faces mullahs' wrath
The Punjab Government is showing flexibility, which is a positive development - Fazlur Rehman
Dunya News Report (Humaira Sajid)
ISLAMABAD – The Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has guaranteed to address the reservations of religious parties on a women protection law recently promulgated by the Punjab government.
Pakistan’s legislative history on women’s rights issues has all those dark, grey and bright patches. There have been repeated attempts and continued efforts by women and men parliamentarians for reform of existing laws and new positive legislation for women. The efforts went along determined struggle by women s rights groups and activists for long years against discriminatory laws and customary practices. Though women of Pakistan reached a milestone in December 2011, when three important bills, Prevention of Anti-Women Practices, 2011, Bill, Acid Control and Acid Crimes Prevention, 2011, Bill, and The Women in Distress and Detention Fund (Amendment) Bill, 2011 were passed by the Senate.
Recently, the Punjab government also passed the Women Protection against Violence Bill 2016, however confronted massive resentment from different political leaders and clerics. The religious parties fulminating against the Punjab Protection of Women Against Violence Act, saw it as a ‘conspiracy’ to ‘destroy’ the family unit. Repeatedly, these regressive forces have demonstrated their willful and irrational disdain for the principles of humanity and even the law itself, such as declaring a minimum age for marriage as being against Islam.
Religious scholars belonging to all schools of thought, united and concurring on one point said that Women Protection Law 2016 is un-Islamic. Fazlur Rehman, the chief of one of Pakistan s largest religious parties, Jamiat-i-Ulema Islam said the law is in conflict with Shariah as well as the Constitution of Pakistan. "This law makes a man insecure," he told journalists. "This law is an attempt to make Pakistan a Western colony again."
Addressing the party workers, Maulana Fazalur Rehman suggested that the Punjab Assembly consisted of subjugated husbands and that the law came into existence because these members got swayed by their impulsive thoughts. The Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, eventually obliging to the demands made by the religious parties, has promised to address the reservations on women protection law. The recent development draws the Prime Minister’s attention away from receiving the updates on how this new bill is going to be established and how efficient it is in terms of providing justice, towards the focus on how the mighty council feels about it, while it continues to share its absurd statements on how the bill does not fit in with the ideology of Pakistan.
It may be noted that the Chief Minister Punjab Shehbaz Sharif has already constituted a committee to ascertain the stance of Ulema about the Punjab Protection of Women Against Violence Act 2016.Provincial Minister for Law Rana Sanaullah is the Chairman of the aforesaid committee while Ahmed Hasaan its Co-Chairman and Senior Member Special Monitoring Unit, Law & Order Salman Sufi its Secretary. In addition, other concerned secretaries, ulema and mashaikh are also included.
Women right activists have rejected the reservations of the clerics who have continually smeared campaigns against this significant legislation, which is a right step towards protecting the dignity and self-respect of women. Pakistani women are subjected to suffer the honor killings, domestic violence, acid attacks and female infanticide. According to the Population Research Institute, that calls itself a non-profit research group and collects data on sex selective abortion, over 1.2 million female foetuses were aborted in Pakistan in the years between 2000 and 2014.
In Pakistan, where domestic violence is considered a private matter, any focus on assessment, intervention or policy changes is considered inappropriate which explains how far Pakistan is from being a pluralistic, modern state in sync with the demands of the current times. Women in Pakistan have to face discrimination and violence on a daily basis due to the cultural and religious norms that Pakistani society embraces. According to an estimate, approximately 70 to 90% of Pakistani women are subjected to domestic violence.
A survey conducted by Human Rights Commission of Pakistan on 1000 women in Punjab revealed that 35% of these women were admitted in the hospitals because they were beaten by their husbands. The survey reported that on an average, at least two women were burnt every day in domestic violence incidents and approximately 70-90 per cent of women experience spousal abuse. While such case studies urge the government to introduce laws against violence on women, a few religious and political entities work in an opposite direction, causing seclusion of the women from the social order.
However, it is important to note that on matters such as rape and violence, if the government bows down to the male chauvinists; it will be like taking ten steps back for each step forward.
