A Pakistan-based
lawyer and freelance journalist has said that the successful tabling of two
landmark private member bills -- the Sindh Minority Rights Commission Bill and
the Criminal Law (Protection of Minorities) Bill -- in the Sindh Assembly, may
not necessarily guarantee the safety and protection of the country's minority
Hindu, Sikh and Christian communities.
In article published
in the Express Tribune, Maria Kari has described both of these proposed Bills
to be promising and progressive, but improbable in terms of eventual
implementation because of a lack of political will, weak administration and
corruption that defines Pakistan.
Praising Nand Kumar
Goklani, a Hindu member of the Sindh Assembly, for tabling the two bills, Kari,
however, said, "In its current form, the proposed law is promising and
progressive. It comes with several built-in special measures that would
heighten protection of a victim of a marriage based on forced conversion. It
grants the alleged convert an option to study comparative religions. It places
a ban on reporting names or the locations of the alleged convert to increase
protection of her and her family. It promises heightened security for the
prosecution, its witnesses, and investigating officers.
"Most
importantly, it promises a punishment to fit the crime: if a marriage is deemed
to have been performed on the basis of a forced conversion, the court can
fast-track divorce proceedings. Individuals found guilty of forceful conversion
face a minimum five-year sentence that can extend to a life sentence. And
those, such as the police or religious clerics, who are found guilty of making
the marriage happen, face a minimum three-year sentence."
But she reminds one
and all that every year in Pakistan over a thousand non-Muslim women are forced
to convert to Islam, and these girls once abducted from the safety of their
homes and communities, are raped and then, usually, married off to their
assailants who sneakily shield their non-consensual sexual assault behind the
veil of a nikkah-nama. Sometimes they are sold into the sex trade.
These girls or women,
she further states, live in fear, rarely ever return to their families, and can
almost never hope to receive any help from the police, the local clerics and
the government often turns a blind eye to their plight. So, the question that
arises is - who does one turn to?
The Criminal Law
(Protection of Minorities) Bill, Kari says tackles forced conversions directly.
"By making it
illegal for a person under the age of 18 to change their religion, and by
providing adults 21 days to make an independent decision on whether they do, in
fact, wish to adopt a new faith. The proposed bill hopes to counter the current
practice whereby a victim shows up in front of a court, with little to no
security, and testifies she converted independently and/or because she was in
love with her perpetrator," she adds.
Pakistan, Kari
reminds, has a track record of introducing promising, progressive laws that
then go on to collect dust on the shelves of law libraries, and she is
convinced that these two private member bills will also face a similar fate.
"Poor
implementation or, in many cases, a complete failure to implement, has rendered
even the best of Pakistan's policies worthless. Implementing legislation sounds
like a no-brainer. A law is proposed, the law is approved, and the law is
implemented. Simple right? Not in Pakistan".
Why, because the
agencies concerned with implementation remain so weak and overrun by corruption
that it is well nigh impossible to achieve.
She concludes by
saying that she is simply not convinced that the Sindh Assembly's (admittedly
progressive) proposed legislations will accomplish much once they are passed
and reach the implementation phase.
She suggests five
steps to restore Pakistan's credibility as a democratic state as envisioned by
its founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah in 1947 and the promise of Article 25(1) of the
Pakistani constitution.
Do away with the
majority/minority wordage and in future legislation simply refer to your
protected class of persons as non-Muslim or Muslim.
Turn up the heat on
holding accountable our voted-in politicians and policymakers.
Ramp up the quality
and availability of pro-bono services across Pakistan. Make pro bono services
attractive to young lawyers. Make current lawyers more competent by updating
them on changes to the law and legal recourses available to victims of forced
conversion.
New laws should not
be confined or deliberated upon in the air conditioned halls of the Sindh
Assembly, but need to be adopted by the streets i.e. masses, where they have
been broken in the first place.
The rampant abuse
against non-Muslims must stop in Pakistan,
and these ground-breaking legislations in the Sindh Assembly are the way
forward.
Representative
Image
Source:
ANI
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