Child marriage
The Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan seeks the toughening of laws for the suppression of swara, vani and child marriage in general.
However, is the increase of the period of imprisonment to six months and the fine to Rs25,000 the “harsher punishment” the commission has in mind? Swara is practiced in NWFP and the Pakhtoon areas of Balochistan.
Vani is another name in Mianwali in Punjab for the same custom in which young women and female children no matter how young are “married” to family members of a murdered man.
The village of Abbakhel in Mianwali district shot to worldwide notoriety in July 23, almost exactly a month after the Meerawala gang rape, when a group of young women and girls including some as young as three were surrendered by their families for the peaceable settlement of a vendetta. The nikahs were duly solemnised by clerics. Government intervention stopped the crime.
To ensure that swara and vani disappear over time, they must be really hit hard now — by the courts, since the government has failed in the effort – because the cancer has begun to metastasise to other parts of the country. For instance, only recently there was a faux swara in Sindh involving young children. But to expect that six months’ in jail would dissuade adults from marrying minors or children or parents from giving underage daughters in marriage to adults is to indulge in futile fantasy. Any effort emanating from this fantasy will be equally ineffectual. And this Rs25,000: it’s more than laughable. Of course, deal with swara and vani, effectively, and you automatically strike at child marriage, an ancient curse all over Pakistan. Such tragedies are common in our rural areas, but there are cases even in cities like Karachi of an unhappy mother of, say, 14 whose husband is well into his middle age, if not an old man. Karo-kari is usually the result of such tragedies. The fact that Pakistan’s courts have become active over the past few years for the suppression of social crimes of this nature is one of the finest developments in the country’s history. Let the courts take effective action against swara, vani and child marriages. But in a way that will ultimately end the customs, not merely make them a little harder to practice.
Source: The News
Date:7/30/2007
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