An anti-honour crime bill has been gathering dust in the National Assembly agenda for years
JUBAIL, SAUDI ARABIA: This is apropos the editorial published in this newspaper on January 18, “The quest for a second Oscar”. I was amazed to see Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s congratulatory message on the nomination of Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s documentary A girl in the river: The price of forgiveness, for an Academy award. As expected on such occasions, he also vowed to eliminate the evil of ‘honour’ killing while expressing his government’s commitment to bring in appropriate legislation against the wicked practice. I wish this person in the prime minister’s secretariat who drafted this statement for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had advised him that an anti-honour crime bill has been gathering dust in the National Assembly agenda for years. In fact, that bill has long since lapsed, thanks to his parliamentarians’ indifference to the very concept of accepting ‘honour’ killings as a crime. Our artists can make all the noise they want, create awareness and finally get a traitorous certificate for washing the country’s dirty linen in public.
Is the prime minister really so uninformed? Doesn’t he know what the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) has been doing about all these issues that put on proud display our society’s male chauvinism? The other day, the National Assembly Standing Committee on Religious Affairs shot down PML-N MNA Marvi Memon’s proposed amendment to the Child Marriage Restraint Bill 2014, to raise the minimum age of girls for marriage to 18. The Committee hid behind a ruling issued by the CII in the recent past wherein any such legislation could be considered blasphemous. We all know what the term ‘blasphemy’ has the capability of bringing, in terms of violence and bloodletting. That’s why the Committee thought it better not to get into any controversy. I wonder how the fixing of the minimum age for girls’ marriage can be declared or considered blasphemous. Yes, all these evils — ‘honour’ killings, karo kari, swara and marriage at a young age are part of traditions prevalent in tribal societies. We need to shed the baggage of these traditions that find acceptance in society under the smokescreen of faith. This is nothing but an in-built male instinct to keep the womenfolk under the thumbs of men.
Masood Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, January 23rd, 2016.
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