How far will Musharraf's social reforms process run?
Nov 19, 2006 - 1:41:29 PM
, Reviewed by: Priya Saxena
|
|
|
But hoping for reelection to the presidency in 2007, Musharraf has registered a constituency among the women, the liberal forces and urban Pakistanis and can hope to bargain even with human rights bodies that have been critical of him.
|
By Mahendra Ved,
[RxPG] With the passage of a watered down Women's Protection Bill by the National Assembly in the face of stiff opposition from Islamist forces in Pakistan, has President Pervez Musharraf initiated a process that will bring far-reaching social reforms to empower women in a highly conservative Muslim society?
With the Women's Bill getting the approval of the lower house, rape has been taken outside the religious domain and made an offence under the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) where scientific and circumstantial evidences would be taken into account to investigate the case.
Musharraf has promised more legislation that would seek to ease, if not repeal, the draconian laws that have adversely affected women's social and economic status in Pakistan.
'The movement we initiated to empower and protect women in 2004 will continue,' Musharraf said in a television address to the nation.
Musharraf said the Hudood laws, passed in 1979 by former military dictator Zia-ul Haq, were unjust and he felt 'not just sad but embarrassed at the cruelties inflicted on women by Pakistani society'.
The president said he would try to amend the system of 'triple talaq', under which a husband can divorce his wife by simply repeating the word 'talaq' (divorce) three times to his spouse.
Musharraf has indicated that he would also take on cultural practices like 'watta satta' that amounts to marrying a girl off to the Quran, the holy book of Islam.
Watta Satta is a custom prevalent in Pakistan's Punjab and Sindh provinces under which a girl is married off to her sister-in-law's brother, a type of exchange between two families, to retain the respective family properties.
Marrying a girl to Quran is prevalent mainly in Sindh and Balochistan wherein a girl lives a life of a nun to retain the family property.
Musharraf did not mention a more widely prevalent practice of 'Karo Kari' - honour killing - where a girl suspected of adultery is declared a 'kari' and her family members allowed to punish her.
Pakistan earned a bad name because of the 2002 gang rape of Mukhtaran Mai, a woman who was punished for the alleged crime of her 12-year old brother in which she had no role.
Many such cases are reported in the media, where the authorities connive with men and with the tribal chiefs to enforce medieval laws weighed heavily against women.
Is there a lesson for South Asia as a whole in these reforms, as some of the customs are common in some form or the other in most of the countries of the subcontinent?
In political terms, Musharraf has earned rich dividends, dividing an irate opposition and forcing a realignment of the country's politics.
A liberal Benazir Bhutto cannot make common cause with Maulana Fazlur Rahman, the leader of the Islamist coalition Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), who has said the women's bill would turn Pakistan into 'a free sex zone'.
Even the conservative Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) of former premier Nawaz Sharif chose to abstain from voting rather than make common cause with Maulana Rahman.
Admittedly influenced by Turkey's Kamal Ataturk, Musharraf, who has been advocating 'enlightened Islam', has challenged rightwing forces that dominate the social thinking in the country.
However, it will be a tough battle since the clergy and the conservatives have hardened their positions, and gained politically from it since 9/11 and the overthrow of the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan.
The Islamists have accused Musharraf of trying to 'secularise' Pakistan allegedly under US pressure.
But hoping for reelection to the presidency in 2007, Musharraf has registered a constituency among the women, the liberal forces and urban Pakistanis and can hope to bargain even with human rights bodies that have been critical of him.
(Mahendra Ved is a commentator on South Asian affairs. He can be reached at [email protected])
|
Subscribe to India Newsletter
|
|
E-mail Address:
|
|
Feedback
|
For any corrections of factual information, to contact the editors or to send
any medical news or health news press releases, use
feedback form
|
Top of Page
|
