Antithetical justice
Atrocities of jirgas are only addressable by negating the very existence of a parallel judicial system.
a woman must certainly never be raped — or married forcibly, tied to a tree and stripped naked — if she, let alone anyone else in her family, marries out of choice. PHOTO: FILE.
On the one hand, the state leadership vows to fight tooth and nail to prevent a blood-baying enemy from affronting the letter of the law, but on the other hand, it blindfolds itself to the shameless flouting of the Constitution by its own citizens who people tribal jirgas and perpetrate horrors against the women of this country.
Let it be as straightforward as this: a woman must never be raped, regardless of what felonies her male relatives, or she herself, commits. Moreover, a woman must certainly never be raped — or married forcibly, tied to a tree and stripped naked — if she, let alone anyone else in her family, marries out of choice. Soon after a 40-year-old widow was gang-raped on jirga orders in Muzaffargarh, the chilling plight of a 22-year-old girl in Chiniot — who was declared “vani” by the local jirga after her brother eloped with a village girl — came to the fore, bringing with it an unnerving sense of deja vu, suggesting a continuity in the perpetration of monstrosities against rural women. Needless to say, these indictments flash a glaring spotlight over the fact that contempt for a woman’s body, for her femininity, have been not just hardwired in the minds of people, but also institutionalised via a parallel judicial system.
The extreme anti-female rulings of tribal jirgas are an issue which has been raised multiple times on these pages. However, rulings should also be seen as one begotten via an antithetical judicial system which, by penalising acts outside the ambit of the Constitution, challenges the very writ of the state. It will be impossible to address jirga-led ruling, in isolation as jirgas across the length and breadth of the country are different in nature and structure. Atrocities of the like are only addressable by negating the very existence of a parallel judicial system and by insisting on uniform statutes of law — otherwise known as the Constitution of Pakistan — which should be binding on every inch of geography of this land without compromise.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 24th, 2014.
Let it be as straightforward as this: a woman must never be raped, regardless of what felonies her male relatives, or she herself, commits. Moreover, a woman must certainly never be raped — or married forcibly, tied to a tree and stripped naked — if she, let alone anyone else in her family, marries out of choice. Soon after a 40-year-old widow was gang-raped on jirga orders in Muzaffargarh, the chilling plight of a 22-year-old girl in Chiniot — who was declared “vani” by the local jirga after her brother eloped with a village girl — came to the fore, bringing with it an unnerving sense of deja vu, suggesting a continuity in the perpetration of monstrosities against rural women. Needless to say, these indictments flash a glaring spotlight over the fact that contempt for a woman’s body, for her femininity, have been not just hardwired in the minds of people, but also institutionalised via a parallel judicial system.
The extreme anti-female rulings of tribal jirgas are an issue which has been raised multiple times on these pages. However, rulings should also be seen as one begotten via an antithetical judicial system which, by penalising acts outside the ambit of the Constitution, challenges the very writ of the state. It will be impossible to address jirga-led ruling, in isolation as jirgas across the length and breadth of the country are different in nature and structure. Atrocities of the like are only addressable by negating the very existence of a parallel judicial system and by insisting on uniform statutes of law — otherwise known as the Constitution of Pakistan — which should be binding on every inch of geography of this land without compromise.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 24th, 2014.