Jirga: the licence to victimise women

Though the gender mainstreaming movements and voices against women prosecution have been gathering momentum across the globe over the past couple of decades, the plight of women in Sindh is becoming increasingly miserable and terrifying. The blood thirsty claws of patriarchy and misogyny have been fast preying on the life and sanctity of women and girls, particularly in rural areas of the province. Besides being the cause of woman’s persecution, feudal system hampers serving justice to victimised girls and women, a number of whom are butchered every year on frivolous charges related to honour, matrimonial disputes and personal animosities. Instead of adjudicating their cases in the court of law, the influential feudal class gets them decided through Jirgas in line with their misogynic rulings. In almost all cases the victim’s family is coerced into submitting to settlements under Jirgas whereby victim families are paid a couple of hundred thousand rupees as blood money. The perpetrators thus continue to hunt women with feudal impunity. There are cases where young girls are ordered by Jirgas to marry a man in the rival group as compensation to the sins committed by any of their relatives. A thorough study of the system indicates that it’s the underprivileged girls and women that suffer the worst in Jirga rulings.

The prevalent jirga system stands in the stark contravention of the Supreme Court Order issued in January 2019. According to the apex court ruling, Jirga and Panchayat System stands in violation of the country’s global commitments including Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, etc. The then Chief Justice of Pakistan, Mian Saqib Nisar, had ruled on a joint petition filed by the National Commission on Status of Women and the Government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa that the ratification of the international commitments makes it obligatory on Pakistan to guarantee access to Courts of Law and Tribunals and equality in the eyes of laws. The verdict further stated that the way Panchayat and Jirga were conducted in Pakistan encroaches on the civil and criminal jurisdictions and are violative of Articles 4, 8, 10-A, 25 and 175 (3) of the Constitution.

In Sindh, four factors contribute to women’s victimisation under the guise of Jirga, as follows:

First is the ossified feudal influence and landed aristocracy. Owing to a rich vote bank, the feudal lords not only rule in their own territories but also influence legislative and executive domains. This allows them to patronise the prevailing Jirga system with impunity.

Second is the adjudication lacunae facing the judicial system. Pendency of cases and delayed adjudications lead to dwindling public trust in the justice system. Therefore, in most of the case, parties to a dispute resort to the Jirga system which is far too swift.

Third, age-old thana culture in the province has served to promote Jirga as an alternative dispute resolution system. Since most of the people are losing trust in police, they are reluctant to report women-related issues to them. In most cases reported to them, the officials favour the influential party or the one that greases their palm. Moreover, Jirga organisers themselves enjoy primacy in police as they are the ones on whose assent officials get favourite postings. Hence the aggrieved are left with Jirga as the only accessible platform to get disputes resolved.

Fourth, illiteracy in rural Sindh has kept the masses intellectually dwarfed for centuries now. This keeps them from questioning the social and legal basis of Jirga. Hence, the Jirga and feudal claws keep on wounding the self-esteem, sanctity and life of women in the province with impunity.

There is thus the need to undo feudal influence in the legislative, executive and territorial domains. Justice, rule of law and egalitarian legal system warrants doing away with the feudal grasp in the name of land reforms and redistribution. Besides, the top court rulings on Jirga system should be implemented in earnest in order to ensure justice to victimised women and discourage women persecution prevalent in Sindh.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 19^th, 2021.

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