Pakistan passes landmark women’s rights bill
Summary of story from RFE/RL, November 27, 2011
The Pakistani National Assembly has passed a long-awaited women’s rights bill which outlaws forced marriage, sexual discrimination and the use of women as a bargaining tool when settling personal and tribal disputes.
The practice, knows as Sarwa, degrades women to mere objects which are offered as “peace tokens” by a guilty party in a blood feud. Women are married to one of the victim’s male relatives and usually are treated like slaves as a punishment.
Under the new law, forcing a woman into a marriage for settling a dispute will be punishable by three to five years of imprisonment and a fine of around half a million rupees.
But outlawing the practice of Sawra is one thing; ending it is another. It has a long tradition and changing mindsets may well be a difficult process.
As Sima Munir, a leader of the Awrat Foundation — a women’s NGO working in Pakistan — says, bartered brides face enormous social pressure to submit to their fate.
“Sawra is an inhuman tradition where girls are treated as animals after [forced] marriage, but whenever a woman asks for help against all this cruelty, the society does not regard her well for demanding her rights.
“The women who tolerate this cruelty are considered noble instead.”
I feel so sorry for these women who have such terrible fates. I feel lucky to be born in the U.S.