Playing with dolls

Congratulations! We have made history. You can now freely marry an under-aged girl and legally get away with it. Bonus points, you might get the court to rule in your favour too. Our forefathers fought wars just to see us encourage (and dare I say legalise) underage marriages. Let your wildest and darkest thoughts adorn your interior, revel in all the possibilities that can further be explored. What’s next, pedophilia?

It evades all logic how the courts function despite an ossification test showing a Dua Zehra’s bone age to be 16 or 17; it is unfathomable how the honorable judge has gone as far as to say that she is free to live with whoever she wants to. I mean now that we’re at it, why not legalise forced conversions too?

But where does the problem lie though? How is it that we, as reasonable citizens, can tell something’s wrong. Why can’t our Lords figure that out too? Dua Zehra is 16 or 17 and she’s been allowed to marry and live with her ‘husband’. Read that as many times as you want and try making peace with it. This is the best we’ve managed in 75 years of our country’s existence and we aren’t stopping any time soon, we just might have more to offer. Mr Mohammad Ali Jinnah, eat your heart out.

Why are we slaves to formalities and to due process? Being a practising lawyer for the past three years, I have noticed that something that can be resolved in a month generally takes years due to following the ‘correct procedure’ which adheres to the ‘laws’ laid down by those who ruled us more than 100 years ago. Why is it that we’re so rigid and inflexible that we will only go by the book? Why can’t we just form a medical board of independent doctors and let them decide if Dua Zehra is of legal age to marry? Why is that court hearings go on for years and years until the claimants die?

Why is that we aren’t utilising the wonders of science to decide a question as simple as decoding someone’s age? But well, on the flip side, Dua Zehra’s case is a massive win for the predators, the sick minded, the diabolical pedophiles and for everyone who wishes to go down the deepest pits of disgust and horror. Those who love to violate and fondle with no objection, the lonely souls with their emptiness fulfilled and the beings who crave the touch of young skin. No more do they have to be left alone with their sanity, their primitive instinct does not require honing any more, because our system has allowed for you to marry a girl who is below 18. Yes, she can and will consent. No, you will not be questioned. We live in a free country.

And for all those who have the audacity to concur with the judgement of the court and those who have been abusing the rhetoric of ‘let her live her life’. I ask you, imagine your underage daughter elopes, will you still adopt this rhetoric and let her ‘live her life’ or will you try and protect her because: a) she is incapable of giving consent; and b) child marriages are illegal. Don’t be a hypocrite.

I haven’t put forth my opinions here in almost a month but the judgement in Dua Zehra’s case was an eye opener and it required being dissected. It was a testament to how we’re flogging a dead horse. The system has failed and there is absolutely no way it will improve, unless it’s reconstructed from the root. I am short on words on how Dua has been allowed to ‘go wherever she wants’, it just sets a massively dangerous precedent.

Our children our calling out our name, they’re screaming at the top of their lungs, can’t you hear them?

Published in The Express Tribune, June 15^th, 2022.

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