The All India Shia Personal Law Board has taken some path breaking legal measures to curb domestic violence in the community. But can the punishments laid down be effectively implemented, asks Hemchhaya De
EVEN PROGRESS THAT IS ACHIEVED OFTEN SERVES TO UNDERLINE THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM – THAT OF LEGAL GUARDIANSHIP OF MEN OVER WOMEN. IN THE WORDS OF ONE SAUDI WOMAN: “WE STILL NEED TO GET A MALE GUARDIAN – HUSBAND, FATHER OR BROTHER – TO SIGN A FORM SAYING WHERE WE ARE ALLOWED TO WORK AND WHEN. IT IS LIKE WE ARE THEIR PROPERTY
One recurring theme that troubles me to this day is that of the oppression of women in society. This subjugation of women transcends social status and cannot be blamed on class struggle per se. Although a Marxist may claim that the subjection resulted in the movement to a class society and the development of human labour capital, I believe this to be a fairly limited view.
Although, arguably, this may account for the development of the oppression of women as the inferior or second sex in the West, does it account for the oppression seen in religious ruled countries such as Saudi Arabia?
Before this is continued I recommend you read this article to summarily create the context of the oppression of women in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi women appeal for legal freedoms
By Daniel Howden and Rachel Shields
Monday, 21 April 2008
In Riyadh, the college day begins for female students behind a locked door that will remain that way until male guardians come to collect them. Later, in a female-run business, everyone must vacate the premises so a delivery man can drop off a package. In Jeddah, a 40-year-old divorced woman cannot board a plane without the written permission of her 23-year-old son. Elsewhere, a female doctor cannot leave the house at all as her male driver fails to turn up for work. These scenes make up the daily reality for half of the Saudi Kingdom, the only country where women legally belong to men.
After more than a decade of lobbying, the New York-based group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has finally been granted access to Saudi Arabia, where it has uncovered a disturbing picture of women forced to live as children, denied basic rights and confined to a suffocating dependency on men.
Wajeha al-Huwaider, a critic of Saudi’s guardian laws that force women to seek male permission for almost all aspects of their lives, is one of a growing number demanding change. “Sometimes I feel like I can’t do anything; I am utterly reliant on other people, completely dependent. If you are dependent on another person, you’ve got nothing. That is how the men like it. They don’t want us to be equals.”
The House of Saud, in alliance with an extremist religious establishment which enforces the most restrictive interpretation of sharia, Islamic law, has created a legal system that treats women as minors unable to exercise authority over even trivial daily matters.
The most egregious consequences of this repressive regime occasionally filter out from the Gulf Kingdom: the notorious case in Qatif of the girl who was jailed after being gang raped on a charge of consorting with a male non-relative; the schoolgirls believed to have burnt to death in Mecca as religious police would not let them leave the fiery premises without headscarves; or the happily married Fatima Azzaz from Mansour, forced to divorce her husband at the whim of her half-brothers.
Beyond these high-profile cases is a demoralising and sometimes ridiculous reality in which women cannot open bank accounts for their children, take them to the dentist or even on a field trip without the written permission of the father.
Petty humiliations are endemic. Two women who spoke to HRW said, in a report released today, that judges had refused them the right to speak in court as their voices were “shameful” – only their guardians were allowed to speak on their behalf. Saudi courts require a mu’arif (a male to identify her under the full face veil) before a woman can even attempt to testify.
“The Saudi government sacrifices human rights to maintain male control over women,” said Farida Deif from HRW. “Saudi women won’t make progress until the government ends the abuses that stem from these misguided policies.”
The oil-rich kingdom lies at the bottom of the UN rankings on female empowerment and women make up only 4 per cent of the workforce.
The frustrations of Dr M are typical of those faced even by educated women:
“When I take my daughter to the doctor’s, they ask me where my husband is, and refuse to do anything until he comes to authorise it. Even if it is something small like an ear infection.”
Another woman who, despite the legal barriers, owns her own business, describes the farcical difficulties she faces: “Only women can enter my premises. If a delivery man needs to drop something off we have to exit the premises first. It is ridiculous.”
Trumpeted reforms from King Abdullah have had little impact on women’s lives. Too often, sex segregation results in an “apartheid” system in which facilities for women are either grossly inferior or non-existent. Women were denied the right to vote in the kingdom’s first municipal elections because there were no separate voting booths for them.
Rehana, a Shiite Muslim woman, was 24 when she got married to a man from her own community. Her parents and her brother had some reservations about the man because he was known to be “mentally unstable”. But his family insisted that he had recovered from his mental illness. So despite opposition from her parents, Rehana married the man because she liked him.
But little did she know that her life would turn into utter misery right after her marriage. Her in-laws forced her to do all the household chores. If she failed to do their bidding, her husband — who earned as little as Rs 4,000 a month as a private tutor — would beat her up.
Things came to a head when Rehana got pregnant. Her in-laws alleged that she was carrying the child of another man. They even refused to take care of the new born. Complaints to the police proved futile as her in-laws were friendly with the local political leaders and even the mafia. Finally, Rehana’s family went to their local maulana and she was allowed to exercise her right to divorce.
“It was all because of dowry. Before marriage, they said that they did not want anything, but afterwards we had to keep buying them things to prevent them from hurting my sister,” says Arshad, Rehana’s brother.
For women like Rehana, the Lucknow-based All India Shia Personal Law Board (AISPLB) is ensuring that help is at hand. Founded in 1972 and dedicated to regulating the laws governing the Shia community, the AISPLB has decided to ostracise or excommunicate men who beat their wives or leave them on flimsy grounds. The new regulation is tantamount to a law that will be binding on every member of the Shia community, which apparently accounts for one-fifth of the total Muslim population in India.
According to Maulana Yasoob Abbas, AISPLB spokesperson in Lucknow, representatives of the board in each state will make sure that the Shia community there severs all links with men who are found guilty of assaulting their wives or deserting them. “It will be a social boycott. The punishment can be considered law and all Shias should abide by it,” says Abbas.
The board has also launched a helpline to receive complaints from Shia women regarding domestic violence. “We have formed a panel of lawyers from within the community who will help women,” says Mohammed Ahmad Ali Khan, the spokesperson of the AISPLB in Delhi. “We will also launch a website soon where women can mail us about their problems.”
So what prompted the board to come up with such an initiative? Ahmad Ali Khan says that they had been receiving a number of complaints from Shia women against domestic violence, dowry demands and even female foeticide. “We carried out a survey in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangaloreand also parts of Uttar Pradesh,” says Khan. “We found that four out of every five women in the community have either suffered domestic violence or were divorced by their husbands on trifling grounds.”
The board also found that cruelty to women was not confined to the low income groups alone. “There’s a higher percentage of such cases among educated and well-to-do Shias,” says Khan.
The AISPLB wants to deal with female foeticide in the country as well. And once again, it has decided that anyone found guilty of female foeticide will be ostracised by the community.
Similarly, measures to punish unlawful dowry demands are on the anvil. Board spokespersons say that the demand for dowry is rampant across the community even though their religion ordains that it’s the groom who gives mehar (dower or nuptial gift) to the bride on the day of the marriage.
Legal experts have welcomed these initiatives in favour of women from the Shia board. But they add a note of caution. “Like Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, this edict from the Shia board can be misused by women to harass men. So the board should thoroughly look into complaints before ostracising men,” says Zafirul Islam, lawyer, Calcutta High Court.
Yet others argue that the new regulations are not practical. “Maulanas have their own way of interpreting our religious texts. They can issue farmannamas on boycotting men, but in this day and age, who’s going to listen to them,” asks Shayesta Bano, president of the West Bengal chapter of International Human Rights Protection Association, a non governmental organisation that offers counselling and legal services to women belonging to the minority community.
Moreover, she points out that despite being well educated and economically independent, few Muslim women come out in the open with complaints against their husbands and in-laws. “The social pressure is so much that they find it tough to walk out of their marriages. It will perhaps take another decade to gain that kind of independence,” says Bano.
But the AISPLB maintains that the new rules against domestic violence are pathbreaking, as they are the first of their kind in the entire Muslim community inIndia.
Of course, this is not the first time that the board has tried to protect women from abusive husbands. It drafted a new model Shia nikahnama (marriage agreement or contract signed by the bride and the groom in the presence of arbitrators and witnesses) in 2006 which granted the right of divorce to women.
As a safeguard against desertion and cruelty, the bride’s part of the model nikahnama says, “If the groom disappears for two consecutive years and does not provide essentials to me, I shall have the right to refer to Hakim-e-Shar'a for divorce (and) the groom should delegate power to divorce to me in this regard.” Further, it adds, “...if the husband uses physical force and if his action causes danger to my life or limbs,...the husband will delegate to me the right to divorce him...”
The AISPLB says that in addition to these clauses in the nikahnama, it has now instructed ulemas (Muslim priests) to ask the groom’s family to decide on the mehar well before the marriage so that the bride’s family can utilise the money for wedding costs. And should there be any dowry demands from the groom’s family, that too can be sternly handled.
With the AISPLB having taken a bold measure to tackle domestic violence in the Shia community, will the other two Muslim personal law boards — namely, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) and All India Women Muslim Personal Law Board (AIWMPLB) — follow suit?
Kalbe Sadiq, prominent Islamic scholar and vice-president, AIMPLB, says that the problem lies in the basic differences between jurisprudences of the all Indiaboard and the Shia board. “But of course such an initiative against domestic violence or female foeticide will work for women’s empowerment in the community,” he says.
Some say it’s time for the Muslim personal law boards to sit together to find solutions to common issues. The need of the hour is to rise above difference, says Islam.
Women like Rehana could not agree more.
No comments:
Post a Comment