Child brides blot tribal Pakistan

As international headlines for much of this month focused on the attack on 14-year-old activist Malala Yousafzai by the Taliban, what generally went unnoticed was the outrageous plight of more than a dozen young girls in Pakistan.
Last month, a blood feud between two battling tribes in the Dera Bugti district of Balochistan province was settled by a tribal "Jirga" (assembly of elders) that decided to hand over as many as 13 young girls in "vani" - an age-old tribal custom that gives females in marriage to males of another tribal group to settle a dispute.

The punishment was handed down by the Jirga allegedly presided over by a member of the Balochistan provincial assembly, Mir Tariq Masoori Bugti. Members of the legislator's clan, however, denied that he had chaired the Jirga, saying he was in Multan at the time.

On October 9, the Supreme Court took notice of media reports on the issue and summoned Mir Tariq as well as the deputy commissioner of Dera Bugti to explain the facts of the case.
"Mir Tariq absolutely did chair that Jirga; you can ask anyone in the Dera Bugti area," Ghulam Nabi Shahani, an elder of the rival Shahani Masoori tribe, said. "He was in attendance for two hours, and his brothers also joined proceedings later."
Nabi also alledged that Mir Tariq's guards held a man from his tribe hostage till all 13 girls were handed over along with a Rs3 million (about $30,000) fine.

Un-Islamic practice

"Nowhere does Islam say it is okay to treat women like commodities instead of human beings." - Fiza Batool Gilani, Goodwill Ambassador

Child marriage - known as "swara" in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, "vani" in Punjab, "sang chati" in Sindh, and "vani" and "lajai" in Balochistan - are enacted in disturbingly large swathes of Pakistan and reinforced by customs that treat women as commodities.
Despite the fact that Pakistan is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of Children, which refers to early marriage as the marriage of people less than 18 years of age, 30 per cent of all marriages in the country fall in the category of child marriages, according to the Rahnuma-Family Planning Association of Pakistan.

"These young girls can be subject to rape while still minors," said Samar Minallah, a human rights activist who in 2004 filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the handing over of women as compensation to settle disputes. While Minallah's petition is still being heard, the vani of at least 70 girls has been blocked by the court since.

At a gathering of women parliamentarians and child marriage survivors organised by a local NGO, 15-year-old Shagufta, from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa's capital city of Peshwar, revealed that she was forcibly married at 10 to a boy of the same age. "It seemed like they just wanted a domestic servant," she said.

Rukhsana, also from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, was 11 when she was married to a 20-year-old man. "On the first night, my mother-in-law forced me to spend the night with my father-in-law and said this was their custom," she recounted.

Fiza Batool Gilani, the goodwill ambassador for Women's Empowerment, decried the practices as "totally un-Islamic".

"Nowhere does Islam say it is okay to treat women like commodities instead of human beings," Gilani said.

Formally, these marriages are prohibited in Pakistan under the Child Marriages Restraint Act, 1929, which punishes offenders with one-month imprisonment and/or a fine of Rs1000 (approximately $12).
But the law, according to many observers, is incomplete and hard to implement.
"Conviction under this law does not serve to nullify the marriage, nor is child marriage a cognisable offence, which means that the police cannot intervene directly," Usma Tahir, a policy manager at ActionAid pakistan, said.
Power politics

Government officials are often quick to trot out a list of fresh pro-women legislation enacted by the Pakistan People's Party-led coalition government in the last four and a half years.
However, many who hail from areas where vani and other crimes against women are prevalent remain sceptical that the new legislations will change anything.

"All these laws will mean nothing as long as parallel systems of governance and administration are in place," former deputy speaker of the National Assembly Sardar Wazir Jogezai said. "As things stand now, half the problems here are solved through Jirgas and the rest through constitutional laws and electoral politics. This confusion only leads to more problems."

"All authority in the provinces is vested in the security forces, which enjoy complete impunity. There is a political government in these areas in name only." - I A Rehman

Explaining the recent vani case in Dera Bugti, Jogazai said the problem arose because Mir Tariq, who allegedly chaired the Jirga that delivered the extraordinary punishment, was both a parliamentarian and a tribal head. "When you have to balance the demands of justice, the tribe and your voters, justice will inevitably take the back seat."

Meanwhile, officials in the federal government say they are unable to fully enforce laws in the provinces after a recent amendment to the constitution placed women's rights under the jurisdiction of provincial leadership.

"It is now for the provinces to make comprehensive legislation and implement them to protect women from harmful traditional practices," Gilani explained.

Read more at:  http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/10/2012101792934276587.html

Inside Story Child brides: How old is too young to marry?

The United Nations is warning that millions more young girls are destined to become child brides, saying if current trends hold many will be under the age of 15.
The marrying off of young girls is a culturally sensitive issue, and one that draws a range of reactions from different countries and different communities.
Critics argue it is fraught with danger, damage and discrimination - a violation of human rights.

And the UN is worried, predicting that 140 million girls will become child brides between 2011 and 2020. That is more than 14 million girls a year it says will marry too young – some 39,000 each and every day.
Furthermore, it is warning that of these, 50 million will be under the age of 15.

The UN has identified 42 countries where one in three children under the age of 18 are married.
Statistics gathered over the last decade found that in both proportions and numbers, most child marriages take place in rural sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
Niger has the highest rate with 75 percent of girls marrying before the age of 18, and Bangladesh is ranked the highest in Asia - at 66 percent.

Moving down the list, more African countries feature prominently, like Mali with 55 percent and Burkina Faso with 48 percent.
Morocco is one of the countries where child marriage is on the increase.

The latest figures show the number of young girls getting married rose to 35,000 in 2010, up from 30,000 just two years before.

Rights groups are calling for a total ban on the practise, and the government looks set to bow to pressure to change a law allowing those accused of raping minors to escape punishment by marrying their young victims.
Research suggests girls who get married when they are young are at greater risk from violence and health problems.
The International Centre for Research on Women says girls younger than 15 are five times more likely to die in child birth than women in their twenties, and pregnancy is now the leading cause of death for women aged 15-19 in the developing world.possible parents want to get rid of her."
It adds that girls who marry before 18 are more likely to experience domestic violence and sexual abuse, and child brides affected in this way show feelings of helplessness, hopelessness and severe depression.


Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2013/03/2013389502292887.html

Trading a 13-year-old daughter for a new wife. Rangina, Afghanistan

Rangina’s mother died when she was 12. In 2003, at the age of 13 she was forcibly married in abadaal (exchange) marriage as her father wanted to acquire a new wife. According to Rangina, the man that she was forced to marry had mental health problems.
“I was my father’s only daughter, so when my mother died and he wanted a new wife he gave me away in exchange. The man he gave me to was mentally ill. I did not want to marry him, but I had no choice. My father did not listen, and my mother was dead. My father thought only about his new marriage, not about me, his daughter.”

Rangina says that her in-laws verbally and physically abused her:
“All the family members were beating me, and calling me names. I was so miserable. My husband couldn’t speak properly, so I didn’t understand what he was saying. My mother-in-law would always say to me, “You are worthless—see how little your father cared about you—he married you to my son, and he is like this, he is mentally ill.”

My father thought only about his new marriage, not about me, his daughter.After one year, Rangina ran away. Despite coming from a remote and highly conservative area of eastern Afghanistan, she managed to journey to the capital, a perilous trip for a young woman to make alone. She made contact with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, who arranged for her to stay in a shelter. Her husband’s family found out, and came to Kabul to demand her return. She told us,

“They came and asked for me to come back. I said no, they kept coming. I always say no. I don’t want to go back. I can’t go back. They want to kill me.”

An official who wishes to remain anonymous told Human Rights Watch that the family discovered the location of the shelter and made threats against her and her staff. The family enlisted the support of various powerful regional political figures to pressure the government to return Rangina to them. A delegation of elders from her province, with the backing of various senators and members of parliament, called on the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to return her. The Ministry of Interior also supported their efforts, despite the illegality of her marriage under Afghan law.

The case was even debated in parliament, where a majority of MPs who spoke did so in favor of Rangina being returned to her husband’s family. Some MPs also called for the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to be closed because it was encouraging girls to run away from home. The director of the shelter says that the debate became very personalized:
“In parliament they named me, they said I was hiding her, and that I wasn’t Muslim, I was Western, I was working for foreigners, for foreign ideas. They got 500 signatures against shelters, against me, against the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, and took it to the president.”

The lobbying attempts of the husband’s family culminated in a meeting that included representatives from the Office of the President, the Ministry of Interior, the Supreme Court, parliamentary representatives, and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.

President Karzai became directly involved. Instead of ensuring protection for Rangina and enforcement of Afghanistan’s marriage law, he urged Rangina to trust her husband’s family when they promised they would not harm her. Rangina refused and said:
“I told Karzai that if he was so confident then he could send his wife or daughter to my village instead of me.”

The cousin of Rangina’s husband, Haji Munowar Khan, led the campaign to have her returned. He told a BBC reporter that Rangina would not be returned to her husband against her will, and she could instead be given to one of his brothers:
“We don’t want our woman to be in Kabul, we can’t allow her to have another husband. We’re not foreigners–we’re not Russians–we’re not unbelievers, we’re Muslims, and we are Pashtuns, and for Pashtuns three things matter–our religion, our women, and our country. To defend these three things we will give up our lives. We’ve promised we won’t do anything to her, and if she comes back to our village we’ll promise again, we won’t harm her at all.”

Rangina has now been living in a shelter for five years. Her attempts to gain a legal separation from her husband, which began in 2007, have so far been unsuccessful. Rangina’s husband has repeatedly failed to appear in court, which under the civil code can be grounds for granting a woman a separation. However, there has still been no resolution.

In August 2007, the Supreme Court accepted a request to have the case heard by the Family Court in Kabul on the grounds that her life could be endangered if she traveled to her home province. However, the Family Court demanded witnesses to prove that she suffered abuse and that her husband was mentally ill. Nobody from her home province agreed to testify on her behalf, because of fear of retribution from the husband’s family in the region. No witness protection program exists. Rangina said:
“I don’t like the courts or the judges. Whenever I go there they say, “Why did you run away? Why did you do this, why you do that?” And now they ask for evidence even though they know I cannot give it to them. It is too dangerous.”

According to a human rights worker connected to the case, the Family Court wants to delay a decision and wait for a presidential intervention:
“The judges are supportive, but they are too afraid to take responsibility because they have no security. There will be danger for the judge if she takes a decision.”

“Nobody wants to come to support her. They are saying that her husband is a good man, and he gave her clothes, food, medicine. They say she’s a bad lady to leave her home, she’s not a good lady.”

When asked why the court could not provide a separation on the grounds that the marriage had been illegal in the first place, since Rangina was underage and forced to marry, the judge said:
“She was 13 when she married this person. This was against our law. But if she didn’t want to marry her husband then she should have come to us at that time and made her objections. Instead she stayed with him for two years and she was happy with that, and only when she’s 15 does she come to us and complain, so then we can’t do anything.”

Faced with pressure from the president, hostility from powerful MPs, and extralegal arguments by the head of the Family Court, women and girls in situations such as Rangina have little reason to trust the state or government to protect them.

Source:  http://www.girlsnotbrides.org/girls-voices/trading-a-13-year-old-daughter-for-a-new-wife/

A year-long campaign titled "Greening Pakistan-Promoting Responsible Fatherhood" was launched on Sunday by Rutgers World Population Foundation to promote responsible fatherhood.

The campaign will be implemented across Pakistan with local partners’ aid and was inaugurated to commemorate World Father’s Day, which is celebrated annually on June 16.

Father's Day is celebrated across the world to honour fathers and appreciate their sacrifices, love and contributions towards their children’s well-being and development. It was inaugurated in the United States in 1910 to complement the World Mother’s Day, which lauds the critical role mothers play in their children’s lives.

The campaign focuses on transforming gender stereotypes in society which dictate that men are only the breadwinners of the family and have no care giving role towards their children, which is traditionally seen as the woman’s job.

The campaign highlights how fathers are far less emotionally expressive towards their children due to these prescribed masculine roles, stunting the overall development of the family and children’s personality growth.

The Rutgers Foundation’s initiative on Father’s Day seeks to eliminate child marriages and domestic violence and help create an enabling environment where women and children rights are not violated.

The campaign will conclude on the next World Father's Day in 2014.

The Day was also celebrated across the city with great enthusiasm among the affluent classes. Young and old citizens alike presented tokens of their love to their fathers. The most popular gifts included watches, clothing items, mugs, cakes, wall hangings and other such Father’s Day memorabilia.

Speaking outside a local fast food chain, Faizan and his children Omer and Alia informed that they had taken time away from the rest of the family for a special Father’s Day lunch. “I work six days a week, and by the time I reach home my dad is already in bed. I hardly get to spend time with him, so today I am taking him out for lunch so we can catch up and bond over some pizza,” said Omer. A very happy Faizan told that his children had bought him a special Father’s Day themed cake and his favourite perfume to honour his striving for their upbringing. “I have worked as many as 13 hours a day so my kids could have whatever they want or need. Today, my son and daughter are returning the favour,” said a proud, beaming Faizan.

However, on the other side of the socio-economic ladder, Father’s Day passed by unobserved. Speaking to a few domestic workers in Sector I-8 revealed that the lower classes were completely ignorant of this international day. “There is a grand party at my employer’s house tonight, so I have been busy with arrangements since the morning, buying meat and vegetables from the market and working with the mechanic to ensure the electricity generator’s functioning. I have not seen my father in six months as he does not live in Lahore and my village is quite far away. I do not know anything about Father’s Day,” said Abdullah, a driver.

In addition to ignorance, the working classes also expressed disinterest in celebrating Father’s Day: “I earn just enough to feed and clothe myself. With rising prices, just paying our room’s rent has become almost impossible. My old father is happy enough that I can put roti in his stomach once a day, he does not expect any gifts or cake,” said Sakina, a sweeper.

The class differential with respect to Father’s Day celebrations cannot be ignored, and stems largely from the fact that most Father’s Day gifts and items are far beyond the economic reach of the poor. According to Nazir, who wanted to acquire a gift for his father, most shops housing these commodities are found in posh locales, and sell items with a minimum price of Rs 1000. “On and around Father’s Day, high end shops located in Jinnah Super almost double prices of Father’s Day items. I cannot afford such gifts as I am from a modest background, so I have just gotten a card for my father. It’s the thought that counts!” he explained.

A shopkeeper in Aabpara Market informed that many elite gift shops earned myriad profits through events like World Father’s Day. “We do great business on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Most of the items are imported from China, and sold with a hefty profit to the local distributor. Valentine’s Day is undoubtedly the most successful.”

Booming business on Father’s Day raises questions about its utility for some. “I understand that people want to honour their parents for all the love they have born them. But in a country ravaged by a severe economic crisis, is it wise to spend thousands on useless merchandise?” said a student, Ali, who chose to celebrate Father’s Day by helping his servant buy a schoolbag for his child. According to Ali, his act is closer to the Day’s spirit.

Others also condemn Father’s Day celebrations like Ali, albeit on a different count. “These celebrations are Christian, and testify to a flagrant disregard for our religion, culture and customs. Father’s Day, Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day are un-Islamic, and their commemoration in Pakistan shows how our nation is foolishly accepting Western cultural imperialism,” said Usman bin Waqar, a mullah at a small mosque in Sector I-10.

However, despite dissenting voices like Usama and Ali, events like World Father’s Day continue to witness rising popularity in Pakistan’s urban areas. - See more at: http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013/06/16/city/islamabad/a-gift-for-my-father/#sthash.SYRwPow5.dpuf

Love you daddy

Father's Day is a celebration honouring fathers and appreciating fatherhood, paternal bonds, and their influence in society. The day is observed in Pakistan on 16th of every June to pay tribute to overwhelming role of fathers in their families.
On the day (today), Rutgers World Population Foundation (WPF) will launch a yearlong campaign titled "Greening Pakistan-Promoting Responsible Fatherhood" across Pakistan to promote active fatherhood and responsibility for the care and upbringing of children. This campaign will be implemented across Pakistan with the help of local implementing partners including Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi.
The campaign is focussed on transforming rigid perception of our society where men are generally expected to be only providers and breadwinners while women and girls are generally expected to give care for children and be chiefly responsible for reproductive aspects of family life. Due to these set patterns, fathers are usually more responsive to children but less expressive in showing emotions towards his children which is affecting the overall development of family and are the main reasons behind increasing trend of various social issues, explained Amina Sarwar, communication officer at Rutgers WPF.
This initiative has been carried out for the promotion of responsive and care giving fathers for prevention of child marriages and domestic violence to create an enabling environment where women and children can access their basic human rights, she informed. Responsible and supportive fathers are the focal point of this campaign and will be engaged to advocate for providing a non-violent environment to children at home to transform their behavior towards strengthening gender equality and empowering women. Most importantly, this campaign will effectively contribute to strengthen the advocacy efforts for required legislative reforms on domestic violence and child marriages.
Pakistan is a patriarchal society where men are the primary authority and women are subordinate. This has serious implications on women's health and social development as well as on men's health and interpersonal relationship. For any behavioral and environmental change to lead to a long-term impact on women's lives it is critical to engage men. Men can be engaged as fathers for providing a non-violent environment to the children at home to transform their children behavior towards strengthening gender equality and empowering women.
For the campaign, local Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and community leaders will be sensitised on the concept of responsible fatherhood through varied awareness raising activities. Media campaigns including radio messages and television talk shows are the most important feature to sensitise different stakeholders on the targeted issues at all levels. For more effective results, there is also need of civil society organisations working on the same thematic area to join hands for this initiative. The campaign will be concluded on next father's day in 2014.

Source:  http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/islamabad/16-Jun-2013/love-you-daddy

Active fatherhood drive launched

A year-long campaign was launched Sunday to promote active fatherhood and responsibility for the care and upbringing of children.The campaign titled, "Greening Pakistan-Promoting Responsible Fatherhood"  was launched by Rutgers World Population Foundation as part of the commemoration of Father's Day, which was observed on Sunday.  Father's Day is celebrated on June 16 every year to honour fathers and appreciate fatherhood, paternal bonds, and their influence in society. This campaign will be implemented across Pakistan with the help of local implementing partners.

The drive is focused on transforming rigid perception of the society where men are generally expected to be only providers and breadwinners while women and girls are generally expected to care for children.
Due to these set patterns, fathers are usually more responsive but less expressive in showing emotions towards his children which is affecting the overall development of family and is the main reason behind increasing trend of various social issues.
This initiative has been carried out for the promotion of responsive and care giving fathers for prevention of child marriages and domestic violence to create an enabling environment where women and children can access their basic human rights.
Responsible and supportive fathers are the focal point of this campaign. Most importantly, this campaign will effectively contribute to strengthen the advocacy efforts for required legislative reforms on domestic violence and child marriages.
The campaign will conclude on next father's day in 2014.

 

Source:  http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/islamabad/17-Jun-2013/active-fatherhood-drive-launched

Solidarity in the face of hostility: civil society and the media work together to end child marriage in Pakistan

In Pakistan, 24% of girls marry before they turn 18. However this figure is challenged by activists who claim the ratio might be higher.

The province of Sindh, where Sujag Sansar (SSO) operates, is one of the most affected regions in the country with 33% of girls forced into marriage, usually to much older men.

The numbers are even higher in rural and remote areas like Dadu District, where Ghulam Rasool worked. It’s in those marginalised areas that grassroots organisations like ours work to challenge deeply rooted views of women and girls.

In rural Pakistan, child marriage is strongly associated with culture and custom. Those who question practices such as vani or swara, where girls are given away in marriage to settle disputes, regularly face anger from tribal authorities.

Anti-child marriage activists are often threatened, accused of interfering with family issues or violating the honour of a tribe, and journalists like Ghulam Rasool face the same hostility too.

SUPPORTING JOURNALISTS TO HIGHLIGHT CHILD MARRIAGE

That’s why it is crucial for civil society to work together with local journalists.

After all, the media plays such an important role in reporting cases of human rights violations. They can talk about it in the press, on the internet; they can convince people on a larger scale than we can.

Though most journalists know little about child marriage, they are eager to learn. So we invite them to workshops to discuss how they can get involved. We hand out factsheets with information on the scope of child marriage, locally and globally, and its consequences for girls’ development.

Many of them don’t know that child marriage happens so often and in so many countries. Once they understand its repercussions, they feel empowered to take action.

Our trainings attract many journalists. You see many journalists in Pakistan, particularly in the regions, work on a voluntary basis: they don’t get paid and rarely get training opportunities. We train them to cover child marriage cases and women’s issues in a sensitive way. It’s a valuable skill to have. Before, you would read stories glamourising the child bride or minimising her plight but it doesn’t happen as much now.

Moral support is an important component of the workshops as well because journalists can feel discouraged by the slow pace of change. For reporters to know that by highlighting the problem of child marriage they strengthen our grassroots efforts to address the practice, this lessens their feeling of isolation and encourages them to continue.

“OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH LOCAL MEDIA IS ONE OF SOLIDARITY AND INTEGRITY”

There used to be a gulf between civil society and journalists. They pictured us sitting in big offices, making money. Now, they see what our work is like, and our relationship has changed to one of solidarity and integrity.

It’s not uncommon to see child marriages stopped by the joint efforts of journalists and civil society. And the message that child marriage is a violation of girls’ human rights reaches more and more people every day.

Ghulam Rasool’s death did not intimidate journalists, a reporter told me at a workshop. Quite the opposite: they are even more determined to continue their friend’s mission.

Together, SSO and local journalists will continue exposing violations of human rights, no matter how powerful the culprits are, until child marriage is no longer.

Source:  http://www.girlsnotbrides.org/solidarity-in-the-face-of-hostility/

Marriage restraint act

THIS is with reference to the news report on early marriages (Feb 1). It says that according to a UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), signed and ratified by Pakistan in 1990, everyone under the age of 18 was a child. It also deals with the subject of child marriages which was passed in 1929 under the Child Marriage Restraint Act. Furthermore, it said that marriage of minors was a criminal offence. For the purposes of the Act, a ‘minor’ was defined as a person below the age of 18 years. However, a ‘child’ was defined as a male of less than 18 years of age and a female of less than 16 years. The Act imposes a penalty of Rs1,000 and an imprisonment of one month in case of violation. The existing Child Marriages Restraint Act had not yet been able to control childhood marriages. Child marriages are made a cognisable offence which was currently treated as a non-cognisable offence.In Pakistan, poverty, illiteracy, social and cultural practices are factors cited for the prevalence of child marriages. An early marriage leads to early conception, which ultimately affects the health of a teenage girl i.e. more than one-third of maternal deaths in the country occurred among females who were married between the ages of 14 and 17 years. Typically, enormous pressures to bear children are put on child brides. In the developing countries, the leading cause of death for young girls between the ages of 15 and 18 is early pregnancy. Pakistan is a signatory to the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, and a child is defined as below the age of 18 for both males and females. While in the Marriage Restraint Act 1929, there is the age discrimination between males and females which is a clear violation of child rights. The government had also signed the Convention on Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and was bound to formulate laws according to its global commitments but it was not being done. Therefore, there is a need that an amendment to the Marriage Restraint Act 1929 be expedited, as it calls for raising the age of girls to 18 (a child, according to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, in any person under the age of 18), the same as that of boys. Substantive increase in the penalty to at least Rs100,000 and immediate enforcement of the same must also be ensured. 

Source:  http://beta.dawn.com/news/783751/marriage-restraint-act