The post Bursting the Myth: A Muslim wom​a​n claims divorce and also retains her Mehr appeared first on SabrangIndia.

PTI: Image for representation
 

The post After ‘Talaq’ over Whatsapp, two women in Hyderabad file police complaint appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Many beauty parlours in Hyderabad old city are merely a front to arrange temporary marriages of pretty young Muslim women from poor backgrounds with aged sheikhs from Gulf countries. Occasionally, more than one girl is simultaneously married off by a pliant moulvi to the same sheikh.

Muslim women are always in the news as the subject of discussion; they are never treated as active participants in any of the minority issues or the issue of communal conflicts. The fact of the matter is Muslim women are very active at the ground level who articulate the issues at different level.

In the old city of Hyderabad where Shaheen works we find a range of issues within the family and outside. Like many other old cities, Hyderabad old city is thickly populated with Muslims. Despite the dominance of the Muslim population, the communal history of Hyderabad had enough events to hamper the social development of the community at multiple levels.

The post-independence history of Hyderabad is marred by riots and massacres between groups of Hindus and Muslims. The ‘reclamation’ of Hyderabad under ‘Operation Polo’ was followed by the political retreat of the Muslim community and development of an innate suspicion and insecurity within the community. The majority group was equally suspicious of the Muslim population and the mutual mistrust worked out into a massacred history.

Muslims in general and Muslim women in particular are poorly represented in the enforcement agencies. This combined with a lack of understanding and sensitivity to the plight of the women, makes the situation of Muslim women seeking police support/protection precarious. Women are the victims or easy targets and their position of social inferiority is an issue that needs to be examined.

Muslim women are doubly prone to exploitation and abuse; both for belonging to a minority group and also for being women. As women they are exploitable by men across the board. As Muslim women, they’re targeted with a number of stereotypes commonly associated with both “Muslimness” as well as women.

Indian Muslim women are oppressed as they face violence within the family structure, dominant religion, and internal patriarchy. While discrimination against women is widespread in India and there is a great degree of commonality in the challenges faced by women across socio-religious categories, Muslim women appear to have their problems sanctified by a narrow interpretation of their religion.
 
The patriarchal structure of Muslim society is very much acceptable even to the women who don’t live within family structure. “I need someone to take care of me and my children,” says Naseem who is now living with her fifth husband and who is ready to sell her daughter to an aged Arab.

The patriarchal setup of the family vests absolute power and influence to the men. “Women are potentially equal with men, but that equality is not achieved”, said Fatima Mernissi, Moroccan feminist writer who is no more. Women still remain subservient and servile – their lives controlled by men. Family – the closest unit of association and the primary unit of social capital – is often the most oppressive place for the Muslim women in India.
 
Women are controlled at every step. If they need to go to school or hospital, they need permission from the male members or they are escorted. The mobile that a young girl carries is always on auto-recording mode so that the family can later monitor and check her movements as well as her friends’ circle.
 
Issues pertaining to security are both perceptual and contextual. With little control over their lives Muslim women largely remain confined to their homes and immediate neighborhood for real or perceived reasons of safety, and feel insecure about their lives, assets and well being.
 
They strongly believe that “Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because God has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore, the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband’s) absence what God would have them guard.” (Quran, 4:34, translation A. Yusuf Ali).
 
Thus the patriarchal structure of Muslim society is very much acceptable even to the women who don’t live within family structure. “I need someone to take care of me and my children,” says Naseem who is now living with her fifth husband and who is ready to sell her daughter to an aged Arab.
 
The extreme poverty combined with patriarchy has led Muslim girls into the trap of temporary or contract marriages where the nikahnama (marriage deed) and the talaqnama (divorce deed) are signed simultaneously and the girls are married to any foreign national for anywhere between Rs. 15,000 to Rs. 1.5 lakh. A girl from a poor family easily becomes a prey in the hands of the middlemen who act as brokers and give a lot of hope to the family that by marrying the girl to a rich foreigner they can become rich over night.
 
Once the parents are taken into confidence, they present her in front of the Arab Sheikh and she is priced according to her looks and sexual appeal of her body. Once the marriage is settled the middlemen take their 80 per cent share in the mehr paid to the girl; only 20 per cent is paid to the girl’s family.
 
On one of their routine home visits in the old city area staff members from Shaheen found an important lead that exposes a ring of persons involved in the flesh trade in Hyderabad. Beauty parlours in the old city, the staff discovered, are more than just beauty parlours. The public face of the beauty parlour announces beautician courses for young women interested in beginning their careers in the beauty business.
 
Covertly, some of these beauty parlours run a full-fledged business of contract marriage where women are married off to Arab sheikhs in exchange for a handsome amount which the girl’s family earns. A middle aged woman, who runs both sides of the business, is popular among the women in that part of Hyderabad as someone who launches their ‘careers’. It is said that there are many other such “beauty parlours” in the city.
 
Shaheen staff members undertook a sting operation to find out how beauty parlours functioned. Two of them approached the above-mentioned woman. They asked know how to apply for the beautician course, saying that they were making these enquiries for a friend who was interested.
 
On hearing that their “friend” was young and pretty, the middle aged woman enquired about the economic status of the family, stating that she might have an alternate job to their ‘friend’ that would fetch her more money. She said their “friend” could make a decent amount by marrying a man who lived abroad.
 
In the course of the conversation, Shaheen staff learned that her husband whets the girls and picks those who are beautiful and just about 18-years-old. These girls are then sent to Mumbai to one of the many Sheikhs who reside in some 5-star hotel. In Mumbai they are married to the Sheikh with whom they stay for some five days after which the Sheikh takes the girl to his home country: Qatar, Abu Dhabi or Jeddah.
 
“Maan, aapko satravan damad Mubarak!” (Congratulations Mother, you are now a mother-in-law for the 17th time!). That was Rehana, 26, writing to her mother from Doha, Qatar in 2002. Rehana is the eldest in the family with nine other sisters and four brothers. Rehana was married for the first time at the age of 12 to an Arab Sheikh and since then her serial marriages were the main source of income for the family. Her mother had forbidden her from returning to India before all her sisters were married off and her brothers “settled” in life.
 
Recently, in 2015, a 22-year-old girl committed suicide after her seventeenth marriage to an old Arab.
 
Many families in Barkas, Salala, Shaheen Nagar and other localities of the Old City Hyderabad survive on such flesh trade. Misusing the sanctioned provision which allows a Muslim man to have four wives at a time, many old Arabs are not just marrying minors in Hyderabad, but marrying more than one minor in a single sitting.
 
The Arabs prefer teenage, virgin brides. Women's bodies are used for easy economic prosperity. Reshma, a 16-year-old was harassed every day by her mother: “Look at others in the neighborhood, how fast they are becoming well off. We are not able to have two meals a day.” Reshma is one of many such adolescent girls whose parents aspire to live a better life. These families want their daughters to look healthy and beautiful with nice clothes.

As Said Shah put it in one of his articles: “There is a constant promise of glitz from the media: you are worth living only if you have a mobile phone, nice clothes, a new car — the list is endless.” This triggers an increase in the crime rate as many take to violence to fulfill their desires.
 
“No one shall be held in slavery or servitude,” states the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But the women in the Old City are so vulnerable that they can go to any extent. Women bear a disproportionate burden in the families, and are most commonly trafficked for the sex trade. The girls are always treated as subordinates and given little freedom to make choices.
 
The Muslim woman’s identity has become a major crisis in today’s globalised world. It needs to be recognized in the first place. The lack of this recognition is the root of the problem. This is what makes her an invisible entity that is vulnerable to violence of every imaginable sort.
 
The government should play an active role in giving the Muslim woman an identity through recognition. This can happen only when Muslims as a minority are recognised and given visibility in such a diverse country like India. Owing to the active discrimination that Muslims suffer as a group they need the support of the state more than others.

The post “Congratulations Mother, You are now a Mother-in-law for the 17th Time!” appeared first on SabrangIndia.

January 30, 2004
The Chairman
All India Muslim Personal
Law Board
Nadwa Sharif
Lucknow

Sir, We write this memorandum to you on behalf of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) representing 7.5 million women of all communities and regions. In particular AIDWA has a substantial membership among Muslim women and is deeply involved in many of the issues of specific concern to Muslim women in the economic, social and political spheres. We believe that there is discrimination against Muslim women by the State reflected even in government statistics on employment, credit, education, and so on. At the same time, similar to women in other communities, Muslim women also suffer from the lack of substantial reform in personal laws applicable to them.

In this context our association has had several rounds of discussions with the Muslim Personal Law Board officials. You will also recall that our members had participated in the meeting called by the MPLB on Muslim women’s issues in April 2001. On that occasion we had submitted a memorandum to you endorsed by almost all the women present requesting you to initiate certain important reforms in Muslim Personal Laws. The then chairman of the Board, the (late) Qazi Mujahidul Islam Qasmi had given us a sympathetic hearing and assured the women present that the Board would prepare a model nikahnama to bring relief to Muslim women.

Unfortunately, it has taken four long years for the draft to be prepared. We have studied the draft now prepared by the MPLB. We would like to express our deep disappointment with the contents of the draft. Since the draft is to be ratified in the general body meeting of the Board at a later date, we are taking this opportunity to bring to your notice certain infirmities in the draft which we hope will be rectified by you.

A marriage performed under Muslim Personal Law, which recognises marriage as a contract between two persons, gives the Muslim woman certain rights not available to other women. She can draw up a nikahnama which guarantees her rights within the marriage. A model nikahnama must necessarily be framed in a way to safeguard the welfare and rights of the bride. It is then up to the groom to accept the conditions. Once the conditions of the nikahnama are accepted it is binding on both parties. Unfortunately, the model nikahnama circulated by you does not at all protect the interests of the bride, nor does it give her the right to put her own conditions for the marriage. Most Muslim women in our country are not even aware of the fact that they have the right to frame the nikahnama and impose conditions on their husbands. This is a very important right that Muslim women have been given which is, unfortunately, being withheld from them by keeping them in ignorance. The Muslim Personal Law Board must necessarily educate the community that the woman under personal law does have the right to frame conditions in the nikahnama.

Unfortunately, instead of making this right of Muslim women central to the concept of a model nikahnama, the MPLB draft is discriminatory against women: everything that is favourable to women has been included only as a pious piece of advice, on the other hand, everything that militates against woman’s rights has been described as Islamic injunctions.

At the outset we would like to express our strong disagreement with the directive in the draft that in case of any unresolved dispute between the two parties, they should appeal to a Shari’ah court. This directive impinges on the rights of Muslim women to appeal to secular courts on issues of direct concern to them. Clearly, this cannot be accepted. This also seems to be part of the long-standing demand of the MPLB for the establishment of Shari’ah courts. Without going into the demerits of this demand we emphasise that it should not be included in the nikahnama. In case of an unresolved dispute either side has the right to go to court as is the right of all Indian citizens.

One of the major issues before Muslim women is that of arbitrary triple talaq in one sitting. This practice exists only in India. Everywhere else in the world, including in Islamic States, there are conditions for talaq. We had expected that the Board would have taken a clear and strong position against this retrograde practice. However, the wording of the sentence "to avoid talaq in one sitting" or to "avoid talaq without compulsion" is far too vague and will not give any relief to women victims of this practice. We therefore request you to declare that arbitrary triple talaq is impermissible and is banned. This is essential to protect the rights of women.

We welcome your suggestion in the section on instructions to the bride and

groom that cash, dowry and feast for the baraat should not be demanded by the groom or his parents. You have stated that it is against Shari’ah and is a great sin. Perhaps you could add that it is impermissible. Please also think of ways that those who demand dowry should be punished by the community.

We list some of the other points below:

In the section entitled ‘Instructions to the maulvi performing the nikah’:
1. It is stated in the MPLB draft that if the couple are both minors or if one of them is a minor, the guardian’s/guardians’ consent must be obtained. This is extremely unfortunate since it condones marriage of minors. The Child Marriages Restraint Act based on the protection of the rights of children must be the guiding point on this issue.

2. It is stated that the woman should not be the divorcee of the same man, even mitigating circumstances are not mentioned. This is giving sanction to the humiliating practice of ‘halala’.

3. The draft states that Shari’ah has permitted second marriage or polygamy with the condition of all wives being given equal and just treatment. Instead of discouraging polygamy and putting it in the context when it was first permitted, the draft thus sanctions polygamy. How can the maulvi know whether the second or polygamous marriage will not lead to discrimination against the first wife or that all wives will be given equal and just treatment?

4. In this section, maulvis are asked not to permit certain types of marriages. However, a marriage of a man with another woman even while his divorced wife is in iddat is permitted. This is extremely unjust to the divorced woman and should not be permitted. In any case, instructions to maulvis cannot and should not form part of the nikahnama, which is between the husband and wife. If found necessary, the instructions to the maulvis can be issued separately.

In the section ‘Instructions for the bride and bridegroom’:

We are glad that the MPLB has addressed the issue of violence. However, the phrasing that "the wife should be treated justly" and that "violence should be avoided" is again far too vague. It could be interpreted to mean that violence is permissible but better avoided. There should be a categorical instruction against violence.

Shockingly, the right of a wife to a divorce is not even mentioned. Even ‘khula’ is omitted in the draft. It would have been better if you had included the right of talaq-e-tafwid for the wife so that she could demand a divorce if the husband violated the conditions laid down by her, e.g. fails to maintain her and their children, takes another wife, etc. There must be a section on the rights of a wife including the right to divorce. A section on the rights of divorced women and children, their right to residence, to maintenance, education and inheritance rights of children should also be included.

In the sections ‘Rights of the husband and wife on each other’:
This section has a series of instructions for the wife – i.e. she cannot visit anyone without her husband’s permission; she must safeguard her modesty and look after the children. Even the visits of the wife to her own family are circumscribed by what is considered "necessary". The wife’s freedom of movement is curtailed while there are no such restrictions on the husband’s movements. These sections are heavily weighted against the wife and need to be rewritten entirely. One of the increasing problems is that of alcoholism and gambling among men. These should be specifically mentioned and disapproved.

It is mentioned that mehr should be paid at the time of the nikah in part or in full. If it is paid later then it should be paid in silver or gold. This again does not guarantee payment of mehr to the wife as it should but, in fact, provides a loophole for the husband. It should be made clear that it is incumbent for the husband to pay the full mehr at the time of marriage.

Conclusion:

Sir, these are a few of the objections and suggestions we have on the MPLB draft. We would like to point out that in the given situation of the various levels of discrimination that Muslim women face including being made the targets of communal forces, it is extremely important for the rights of Muslim women within the community to be strengthened. It is our belief based on experience that fundamentalists of all communities misuse religion and so-called religious sanction to protect their own sectarian and hidebound views which in fact have no religious sanction and in fact militate against the Constitution of India. The need for reform in Muslim Personal Law is apparent and much delayed. You are also aware that when there is little hope within the community for reform, individual Muslim women have been approaching various courts of law for redressal of their grievances. We believe that personal law reform that is initiated from within the community has a lasting effect. We hope that you will not delay the processes of justice to Muslim women any further. The framing of a model nikahnama provides you with the opportunity to send a strong message for personal law reform to the community. We hope you will consider our views based on the experience we have with working with Muslim women from all sections across the country and redraft the nikahnama accordingly.

Yours,

Anwara Mirza
Zarina Khursheed
Maimoona Mollah
Rehana Sayeed
Mariam Dhawale
PK Zainaba
aidwa@ndb.vsnl.net.in

The post Faulty model appeared first on SabrangIndia.