On the Assertion of Rights

Pakistanis abroad trick daughters into marriage
By Owais Tohid | Special to The Christian Science Monitor

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN - When Neelum Aziz visited Kashmir for the first time last year, the young British girl couldn`t wait to explore her family`s home village. But her parents had something else in mind.

Two weeks after arriving in Kotli - in the Pakistan-administered part of the disputed territory - Ms. Aziz was told she had to marry her cousin.

``[My father and uncle] took away my [British] passport, money, and other belongings and locked me up,`` she says. ``I screamed and shouted and kept on crying. My tears dried up, but my family elders did not listen to me and married me to a cousin of mine without my consent,`` she says.

Aziz`s story is only the most recent example of hundreds of young girls who become victims of their families` desire to preserve an age-old tradition. According to human rights activists, 250 girls like Aziz - daughters of British citizens from Pakistan - were forced into marriages with relatives in 2002 alone.

For many Pakistanis living abroad, sending their child to marry in the home country is a sure way to preserve culture and lineage. But for many of the girls themselves, who chafe at harsh parental control after relishing freedom in their adopted country, this clash of cultures is a breach of fundamental human rights. It`s a cultural clash that diplomats and law- enforcement officials find difficult to resolve, because it takes place in two separate countries and legal systems.

``[These Pakistanis] opt to live in the West but want to keep alive the traditions of the East which victimize women,`` says Zia Awan, the head of Madadgaar, a nongovernmental organization that provides legal aid and is a crisis center for women in Karachi, Pakistan. ``Bringing the girls back to Pakistan makes coercion simpler and easier, as the young girls being brought up in the West are alienated from their known environment,`` he says.

Most of the reported cases are of British-born Pakistanis; about a million Pakistanis live in England. But activists say girls of Pakistani descent from Norway, the Netherlands, and Ireland have also been brought to Pakistan by their parents and forcibly married to relatives.

The practice is not new, but seemingly on the rise, according to Mr. Awan. ``We are witnessing an extremist return to Islam, especially among Pakistanis living abroad. They perceive the changing policies of the West to combat terrorism as a direct hostility toward Muslims living in the West, and we believe that the rise in forced marriages is linked to the changing attitudes.``

In Pakistan, forced marriages usually go uncontested. ``Here girls are treated as animals. They are bought, sold and even bartered to settle the tribal feuds,`` says a well known, independent human rights activist in Karachi, Attiya Dawood. ``The girl is a symbol of honor in our society and is targeted at every level.`` Her consent in a marriage has ``no importance,`` she adds.

Some observers point out that forced marriages are a cultural, rather than religious, issue. Marriage in Islam is a civil contract, requiring that the woman vocally express her consent three times in front of witnesses.

``Islam is not a religion of extremism or coercion. It does not allow this practice,`` says Anis Ahmed, a professor of comparative religion at the Institute of Policy Studies in Islamabad. ``There is a difference in the social and cultural ethos in civilization of the East and the West. Here girls have to take their families and parents into consideration while marrying, it is not just one person`s decision. So there is a difference between the perception about marriage in the West and East.``

Attempts by women to protest arranged marriages often backfire. In one widely reported case, Samia Sarwar was murdered at a women`s shelter in Lahore in April 1999. A resident of Peshawar, she fled to Lahore seeking legal assistance to file for divorce from her abusive husband and to marry a man of her own choice. But, according to Amnesty International, Ms. Sarwar`s educated and influential parents considered her request for divorce a dishonor and hired a hit man to shoot her during a meeting with her lawyers.

Five years ago, Rukhsana Naz, a British girl of Pakistani origin, was strangled to death by her brother in Britain. Her crime was that she had refused to stay in a marriage arranged when she was 16. A court in Britain sentenced Ms. Naz`s brother and her mother - who assisted in the murder - to life in prison. The incident triggered a movement within the British community against this illegal practice of forced marriages, and a liaison was established by British and Pakistani authorities in Islamabad to help victims of forced marriages.

Aziz herself managed to escape her parents` decision, taking advantage of this liaison. When she refused to marry her cousin and threatened to return to Britain, Aziz says the family elders locked her in her room. ``I was kept there and provided meals. My elders would ... try to convince me that it would be better for my family if I marry my cousin. It went on for almost 12 days, and then a cleric was called, and i was wedded to a person whom I did not want to spend the rest of my life with.``

Eventually, Aziz sent a letter calling for help to the British High Commission in Islamabad. Within a few days, British officials learned that Aziz was already married and being detained against her will.

Aziz appeared in high court May 2 in Muzaffarabad, the capital city of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. With help from the British High Commission, the chief justice ordered her release. ``If I am sent back to [Kashmir], I fear they will kill me,`` Ms Aziz told the court. ``I am told not to speak the truth otherwise I will be shot,``

Last week, she returned to Britain. Her lawyer, Raja Shafqat Khan Abbasi, who handled 14 cases like hers within the past year, says she still fears for her life. But, he adds, ``the best part is she is now in Britain, and she can live her life.``

`` People should be free to practice their religion. ``

That would depends on what religious practices they follow

Thank you all for you comments.

I think Temporal’s rap on my knuckles is relevant. There is much, much more to the enforcement of the law than debates on the Presidency, on the Islamization of laws and the apprehension of bank defaulters. Our system is geared to acknowledging and kowtowing to old power structures: It has never recognized rights. Rights like that to clean water and sanitation, against arbitrary arrest and the like.

What I’m trying to say is that it is these rights which are the ones that count. Not how many more rupees I have to repay a loan with. There is little point in building castles in the sky if, by the time the construction work is through, there is no one willing (or left) to live in them.

Rafay Alam

Sorry I keep on re-appearing.

Re: Sac # 2

You said :``What will be the source of inspiration for these rights? The last address of the prophet or Magna Carta?``

That`s a good point, and a hell of a difficult question to answer. The declarations in the Magna Carta reflected the needs of a certain class of English gentry at tha time. What would would the people of Pakistan assert as rights, if they were asked to reduce to them to writing?

To determine these rights, it is essential to speak for all Pakistanis. Not just jehadis or the ``Wester-liberal`` elite, but everyone.

My best guess would be something like this:

People should be free to practice their religion.
People should be free to own their property.
People should not be deprived of that property except by legislation.
People should not be imprisoned except for having committed a certain types of offences stipulated by legislative enactment.
People should be allowed to express thier opinions.
People should be allowed to form groups to focus those opinions.
People should be allowed to trade.
And on and on.

Which sounds more or less like the rights already written in the Constitution. The problem with the constitution is not its contents, but the interpretation given to it. I believe, if legal decisions and administrative actions were taken with these rights in mind rather than concern over the exchequer, you would have a functioning system.

For that to happen, people need to realize that they ``have`` these rights, and that any sort of hinderance to their enforcement is a travesty to the system of government which they have (some would say forcible) ascribed to. When people realize these rights, then my ``assertion of rights`` will come to pass.

A rather oblique example: In Lahore, the Local Government is, by Ordinance, allowed to levy a fee for advertisements in the city. The levy is based on the square footage of the ad. At the same time, the Parks and Horticulture Authority (the PHA), is collecting a tax from those companies which diplay advertisements in the city. The law which creates the PHA, it transpites, does not give the PHA the authority to levy tax (it does allow the PHA to collect a ``development fee`` for the work it does). The advertisers in Lahore are, therefore, paying tax twice for the same thing: The regulation of advertisment in Lahore (and, given its state, there doesn`t seem to be much of that either).

The point is this: If the people of Lahore knew theur rights were being violated by this double taxation, they would not stand for it. But no-one knows. There is no knowledge of rights, hence no assertion of enforcement of them.

Rafay Alam

feroz:

well said:)

...t

Rafay,

Your article is educational and interesting, but no offense meant it has way too much emphasis on institutions, rights and vision. Without any sarcasm intended, do they mean anything in the legal infrastructure of Pakistan?

Nawaz Sharif and his entourage should be given the due credit in disabling and belittling the Pakistani judiciary. The rest followed the footsteps. Ironically, Pakistani institutions have become so weak that any government can manipulate the institutions based on its whim. In a way, you cannot lay all the blame on the institutions since they are the by product of that system. The other option is to outsource one`s institutions to those who are capable of introducing a sane governance model. A few years back, I suggested this to a senior dignitary in a firm but sarcastic stride. The response was so damn amusing that I promised never to sit amongst the so called enlightened dignitaries. They are ready to sink the ship in no time if you analyze their rationale carefully :)

In my humble opinion, effective changes take place top down vs bottom up. Masses may fight for their rights and all the good stuff, but they will need to elect, when given a chance, the right people. Awareness is the key. In general, Muslim Countries are not well equipped with that right sense. They are not aware of the meaning of governance. To them governance is more like might is right or fatwa style life. History has many examples of that.

There is also too much baggage involved in the scenario under discussion. The progressives in Pakistan have a certain mindset, but they face road-blocks in promoting that mindset by those who want to constantly chant the ``true`` purpose of Pakistan`s creation. It is foolish to compare the current state with the purpose of creation. The reason for the constant chanting on the purpose is to mislead the masses and drive them to a state of confusion with a constant guilt trip.

Vision requires preparing for the future while keeping the lessons learned in the back pocket. The current visionaries seem to be reading the aforementioned upside down.

By the way, who cares for Pakistan`s constitution? I have heard the visionaries have already taken their boriya bistar near the Afghan Border ensuring Mr. Karzai`s waistcoast is properly dry-cleaned and he is getting the appropriate yards and yards of chadors to add to his mysterious persona. Their next stop will be monitoring the vicinity of Dal Lake. Kaheen koi patta pani main to naheen gir gaya.

Real Visionaries - Zindabad!

Re: Rafay Alam

Constitutions do not make institutions. Pakistani insitutions are all designed to support the power of the state and not to check it. There is no independent insitute in Pakistan and none, will be allowed to exist because that would be akin to creating a sembalance of order and accountibility and that is against the interests of the Pakistani ruling elites.

What you are asking is attempting to limit a Hobbesian world within a Lockean paradigm. There is one viable insitute in Pakistan and it is primus inter pares-secundus nullus! What is the worth of a consititution in a nation, whose entire writ is based on the extra-legality of its laws? Magna Carta? No taxation, without representation? These utopian platitudes are meaningless in a nation, where political power is determined by the rights and virtues of timocracy.

As someone would say, the bloody natives are not fit to govern themselves let alone have a consitution or insitutues! Take your last quote and remember, liberity never existed in the hearts of men and women lording over this land/fiefdom, because these people are not tolerant enough to abide by the strictures of a consitution and base their political insitutues on a tradition of dissent. Pakistanis are anarchists, because they are threatened by laws and have no wish to see them exist and what they believe in, is the right of the powerful to oppress and exploit the weak. In Pakistan, the reality is a rigid feudal mindset frozen in a medieval world view and not the wishes of some enlightened philosophé. Consitutions are for people, who have a modicum of self-respect and wish to respect others. Insitutions are for a people willing to create and not destory.

Isn`t it ironic that you write an article on consitutions and insitutions and quote a man, Justice Munir, who did more than most people in Pakistan to subvert both of them and prositute them to the whims of power? This is the same man, who created the doctrine of state neccessity and it was his wunderkind that has been used periodically to undermine both the constitution and the insitutions of this land.

There is a difference between law and justice and in Pakistan, these two are not on speaking terms!

Ciao

``It will take nothing short of a collective assertion of rights before Pakistan’s political psyche can comprehend its colonial mindset and begin to affect change. Of course, such an important task should not be left to our politicians``

Rafay, wake up take a wlak in the streets of pakistan, look at the collection boxes for jihad, look at the posters for jihad, even you can (according to kuldip nayyar) attend the mosque that mushy attends and listen to the jihadic cry from the mullah and contribute a few paise to the box. Tray and estimate the pakistanis killed in afghanistan, look at the joy of the kin at the death of their so called dear ones.
There is a social revolution taking place in pakistan, form the religious quarter, they have become politicians now. Pakistan is cxreated for islam, and a new version of islam is emerging from the womb of pakistan. It is a new identity, jiahdic republic of pakistan, or if you want it to reflect the preoccupation of people call it pakillstan.

``One can only hope that the ``determination`` of the chief minister to eliminate begging from the provincial metropolis and other areas of the province will result in combating this social evil.

SAEED MALIK

Lahore ``

Rafay, above is from dawn of today. Freedom of the individual, for the world a pakistani begger is preferalble to a pakistani jihadist, ask the hindus of kashmir. Now can you start a movement to support the social rights of beggers of pakistan, I am ready to contribute, email me at jay@raw.com.in

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Rafay Alam,
not only do you write well but I see hope for Pakistan

and its future in your thoughts. Let Liberty rule.


Ras

``It will take nothing short of a collective assertion of rights before Pakistan’s political psyche can comprehend its colonial mindset and begin to affect change.``

until then, we`re left with musical chairs. which would be all right had the fuaji fuks kept themselves out.

i`m extremely ashamed at having such demented faujiz ruling the country. this feeling is exacerbated when i compare it with `generals` of latin america- presidents of venezuala or ecuador. now those are `real` generals who won hearts of people. why can`t pakistani fauji generals put their money where there mouth is and run for elections like everyone else? all they do is fart around.

Interesting but includes a huge whopper (i.e.enormous lie)

[begin-quote]
or the ever popular “Pakistan ka matlab kiya? La Ilaha Il Allah!”

I must hasten to add that this last phrase did not actually exist until after Partition. In his book “From Jinnah to Zia,” the former Chief Justice of Pakistan, the late Muhammad Munir, explained that it wasn’t until 1954, when he was appointed onto the Court of Inquiry into the causes of the anti-Ahmadi rioting in Lahore, that he heard the phrase used for the first time
[end-quote]

Many, many commentators from Wolpert to god only knows who else have recorded the use of this phrase as a ``rallying cry`` during the 1940s. Yes, I am well aware that the leaders of the Pakistan movement did not use such phrases. But their followers certainly did and had a lot of clarity about the meaning of this phrase.

But then again, I understand that fairy tales are preferred to reality in Pakistan, so enjoy your fantasies...

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Aap ka hukm sir aaNkhoN per, magar tashih sakht lafz hai.

Jis khet se dehqaN ko muyassur na ho rozi
ous khet ke her khosha-e-gandum ko jala do

Rafay:

``I believe that it is our judiciary, with its powers to strike down laws inconsistent with Fundamental Rights.....``

What will be the source of inspiration for these rights? The last address of the prophet or Magna Carta?

When courts are entrusted with legislation rather than arbitration as it is happening in the US, things go down the drain. Where will we get men of any substance to uphold these `fundamental rights`? They are too busy looking for extensions, plots and sitting in `aitkaafs` to give a hoot.

later
-sac