Crying wolf: Law dept raises red flag as MPAs term sang chatti a crime

Sang chatti is a practice in which tribes trade girls .

KARACHI:

A draft bill proposing strict punishment against people found involved in sang chatti, a practice in which tribes, families and communities trade minor girls as compensation to settle disputes, might hit a snag or two thanks to the provincial law department. The Sindh Assembly’s special committee under Pakistan Peoples Party MPA Bachal Shah met on Friday and recommended that the women development and social welfare department prepare a draft bill to prosecute people found engaged in the practice, but not before law officials had let their opposition known.

The committee was formed by Sindh Assembly speaker Nisar Khuhro after PPP MPA Humera Alwani, Muttahida Qaumi Movement MPA Heer Ismail Soho and Pakistan Muslim League-Functional MPA Nusrat Seher Abbasi had passed a joint resolution on the issue.

“Girls get forced into marriage as compensation. This is an inhuman practice and we want everyone, including MNAs and Senators who are involved in this menace, to be punished,” said Alwani.

MPA Abbasi lamented that despite the Sindh High Court’s decision to ban jirgas, they were still being organised by influential people. “This is a parallel judicial system and negates the law.”  However, law department officials present in the meeting argued against the proposal. “A federal law is there to deal with the same issue. We should make suggestions to amend the existing law,” opined one such official. Another official said that the Child Protection Act already dealt with the issue. Alwani countered that that law mostly covered street children against abuse.

Additional chief secretary of the home department Sohail Akbar Shah, on the other hand, said that after the passage of the 18th constitutional amendment, it was the prerogative of provincial assemblies to draft new laws or amend old ones to deal with issues they think were not properly addressed by federal laws. He gave the example of the Sindh Arms Act, a law which was being drafted by the provincial home department in consultation with the federal interior and law ministries.

The National Assembly, meanwhile, had already promulgated an Arms Act.

Bachal Shah, however, directed the women development and social welfare department to proceed after consulting the different stakeholders. A copy of the draft bill would be sent to the chief minister, who would then refer it to law department for evaluation. The bill would later be sent to the provincial cabinet for approval, before being brought up on the floor of the Sindh Assembly for voting.

PPP MPA Najamudin Abro looked one step further and said that many laws that were already on the books were not being implemented in letter and spirit. “We passed a resolution against shisha smoking, but no action was taken even though the home department imposed section 144 against it.”

Published in The Express Tribune, May 26^th, 2012.