Protecting minority rights

September 27 marked a historic day for Pakistan’s minorities. Previously, Pakistani Hindu citizens had no means to register their marriages, reflecting a system that wilfully neglected to acknowledge them as citizens with equal rights in the country. However, the National Assembly finally passed the Hindu Marriage Bill-2016, which will provide a system for the country’s two-and-a-half million Hindus, by which to register their marriages and handle other matrimonial matters dealing with legality and the state. The number of Hindus may since have dwindled, since the Hindu community have been marginalised by the system for decades. Nevertheless, the passage of this bill is an exemplary step by Pakistani lawmakers. The hope is that it remains in focus until it is implemented as a legal act.

One of more consequential aspects of the Bill, even greater than the registration of Hindu marriages, is the goal to end abductions of married Hindu women and their forced conversions. Registration of marriage and divorce is an ordinary matter of the state, but the blatant violation of human rights in the way of abductions and forced marriages is sordid and needs to end at all costs. Nonchalant attitudes towards violations that rob citizens of their free will cannot continue while our leaders continue attending UN general assemblies year after year, because a basic tenet of UN membership is to protect the rights of all people. The passage of the Bill is timely with the recent attendance by our PM at the UN General Assembly. This time should also serve to allow our lawmakers to review other laws that deliberately seek to sideline minority and other smaller communities of Pakistan: the Ahmadis, the Christians, and the Zoroastrians among some of them. We will not see a denouement to the persecution of precious Pakistani communities until lawmakers and law enforcement not only openly denounce violations but end the systemic marginalisation through protective laws and their implementation, as this Bill hopefully seeks to do.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 3^rd, 2016.

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