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April 18, 2006
Pakistan: More Muslim Girls In Child Forced Marriage Scandals
We reported yesterday on a 13 year old girl, Bibi Jan, who was bought at a market and then given in a compensation package to a family in Northwest Frontier Province. The custom of giving girls as brides in a compensation deal n this region is called swara, but in effect is exactly the same as vani. Vani is the term employed in the Punjab region. We first reported on vani marriage in November last year.
Cases of vani and swara marriage are usually decreed by village councils, which are known as jirgas or panchayats. A jirga in the Pashtun community near Peshawar had ordered the family in the Bibi Jan case to buy a girl to be given in marriage. A discussion on this case can be found here, but being a BBC site, the link to our site has now been censored as of 9pm GMT tonight.
Recent reports, such as that of even unborn girls being promised in vani marriages, show that the custom is alive and showing no signs of abating. Last week we described how a girl was suing her father and her "bridegroom" for being forced into a marriage arrangement when she had been only one years old. The nikah or marriage contract, had been authorised by an imam for her and her sister to become betrothed to grooms who were also one years old. They were forced into this vani marriage because of a murder committed twenty years before they were even born.
Following a scandal around the case of a young girl of three years of age was given to a sixty year old man in 2004, the custom of vani became outlawed. It finally became law a year ago, as Article 310A of the Pakistan Penal Code.
On Monday, the Pakistan Daily Times reported on yet another case of forced vani marriage. Here two girls had been given (in their absence) in nikah to a family on the orders of a panchayat. The family to which the girls are to be given live in the village of Bundial in Qaidabad, 25 miles from Mianwali (see map). A detailed map of the region can be found here.
The girls are aged only 12 and 7, and the panchayat ordered that they must be handed over to the family before April 20. They were to be given away because of a "crime" committed by their brother, Rehmatullah. The young man had developed a relationship with a Shahnaz, a girl neighbour, from the family of Ghulam Muhammad. The young couple eloped in March this year, later sending a copy of the nikah mama marriage decree to their parents.
Ghulam Muhammad took his "case" to the local panchayat, claiming he had been dishonoured, and demanding vengeance for the loss of his daughter. The panchayat was convened and ordered the groom's father to give his daughter as compensation to Shahnaz's brother, Muhammad Afzal, who is already married with two children.
As a result of this ruling, 12-year old Amina Bibi will be given to 28-year old Muhammad Afzal, and her 7-year old sister, Rehana Bibi, will be given in marriage to Ghulam Muhammad's nephew, 8-year old Ramzan. The nikah ceremony was formalised by Muhammad Eseb, the local imam, but has not been registered.
The panchayat ordered the eloped couple, Shahnaz and Rehmatullah, to be banned from the village. More ominously, the panchayat also commanded the young girls' father not to contact the police nor the press. However, the girls' father decided to ignore this command, and made his own campaign to save his daughters. He contacted the inspector general of the Punjab police, the Punjab Chief Minister, and the chief justices of the Supreme Court in Lahore, to get them to intervene.
When the head of the panchayat which had made its decree, he said the case was a "minor incident involving a Kamee (low-caste) family." So much for valuing the rights of two young girls.
In a follow-up, the Daily Times reports that the father of the two girls' appeal to the police has had some success. They arranged for the marriages to be officially annulled in a divorce decree arranged on Monday morning.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HCRP), which has said that tribal jirgas/panchayats should be prevented and declared illegal, has expressed its approval of the divorce arrangement. However, it has now stated that the two girls are still not safe.
The father of the two children (also called Ghulam Muhammad, like the father of Shahnaz) is being pressured on account of the clause in the panchayat's decision, which was witnessed by 15 people. This clause stated that, should the government intervene, then Malik Muhammad Yar, the leader of the panchayat, would still retain power to hand over the girls to their husbands.
HCRP has said that for these reasons the government should intervene. One wonders what the police are paid for, as vani marriage is now illegal, and a girl under the age of 16 is not allowed to legally marry.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at April 18, 2006 4:44 PM
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