**What a lucky girl…errr toddler. Hope she doesn’t go topless on a beach. **
…
Court awards hand of girl aged two to 40-year-old
Wednesday April 20, 2005
The Guardian
Chewing on a biscuit and gurgling with laughter, two-year-old Rabia plays with her elder brothers outside their mud-walled farmhouse, amid a sea of green wheat. The barefoot toddler flashes a smile as her first words tumble out.
But that innocence will be shortlived if local elders have their way, because Rabia is already promised in marriage - to a man 38 years her senior. A village court determined her fate after her uncle, Muhammad Akmal, was accused of sleeping with another man’s wife. After an hour-long deliberation, the elders found him guilty and fined him 230,000 rupees (£2,070). They also ordered him to marry his niece to the wronged man, 40-year-old Altaf Hussain, once she passed her 14th birthday.
Rabia’s mother, Maqsood Mai, who is separated from her husband, had no say in the matter. But her other uncles were furious.
“This is a terrible crime,” said Muhammad Nawaz, sitting outside the house near the Indus river in southern Punjab. He vowed to move the family before Rabia could be taken away.
“This is the first time in the history of our tribe such a thing happened,” he said.
But Mr Nawaz is wrong. Although village courts are illegal, they still hold a powerful sway in rural Pakistan, and verdicts that target the innocent - particularly women - are common.
Poor farmers still turn to informal justice systems, known variously as jirgas or panchayats, to settle disputes about land, honour and money. The courts have many attractions. In contrast with the plodding, expensive and often corrupt public courts, a panchayat can be convened at a few hours’ notice in a house or under a tree. The gathered elders act quickly, cost little, and are unequivocal in their judgments.
But the justice rendered is often rough, say human rights activists, who say panchayats favour the rich, fuel old notions of bloody revenge, and perpetuate feudal inequalities.
“They nearly always decide in favour of the most powerful,” said Rashid Rehman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in the southern city of Multan. “In these areas the people are living in the 16th century. And still the state is sleeping. Why?”
Panchayat decisions can be as bizarre as they are cruel. A panchayat in Lodhran district last year ordered seven women to divorce their husbands, in an effort to end a feud between two clans with marriage ties. Their 25 children were handed over to the fathers.
In another case, a woman claimed by two rival men had her fate decided by the flip of a coin. Panchayats are also central to the phenomenon of karo kari, or honour killings.
Oxfam estimates that between 1,200 and 1,800 women are murdered by their relatives every year in the name of preserving family honour. Many killings are sanctioned by village courts.
The most notorious “honour” case of recent years concerned Mukhtaran Bibi, a 29-year-old Punjabi woman who in 2002 was gangraped on the orders of her local panchayat.
She became an international human rights heroine when, in defiance of local custom, she confronted her attackers in court and had six men sentenced to death.
But an appeal court sparked a national outcry by freeing the convicted men, citing flaws in the original prosecution. Now the supreme court has said it will decide the matter.
But Mukhtaran Bibi’s is an exceptional case - most panchayats go entirely unscrutinised. The weak writ of government in remote rural areas allows rough justice to thrive, according to Mr Rehman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
“It’s a story of two countries. People in towns can access modern institutions, but those in the countryside live in a semi-tribal system.”
In Kutcha Chohan, the nearest police station is 25 miles away and the nearest lawyer’s office 60 miles distant. Overstretched police patrols pass by only once a fortnight, residents say, and legal fees are too expensive for poor labourers.
“If a person wants speedy justice, the courts are a waste of time and money,” said Muhammad Hussain Tahir, a neighbour of two-year-old Rabia. In contrast, he said panchayats were decisive and could avert violence between sparring families.
“Their verdicts are mostly good. Maybe they make a mistake 5% of the time,” he said.
Rabia’s case has provoked a storm of controversy in Kutcha Chohan. The district police officer, Maqsood ul Hassan, said the marriage deal had taken place. But it was a simple case of arranged marriage, he said, “so no law has been broken”.
Addressing rallies in several towns this month, President Pervez Musharraf repeated his message of “enlightened moderation” to curb Islamist and tribal extremism. But critics say he has failed to introduce real reform. “Despite their tall claims, the government has not done one iota,” said Hina Jilani, a prominent lawyer and human rights activist. Hopes were raised last year when a high court in Sindh province declared that jirgas were illegal, and ordered police to prevent them being convened. But the order has been widely flouted.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,2763,1463610,00.html#article_continue
