HYDERABAD: Sindh Assembly Deputy Speaker Syeda Shehla Raza was on Thursday highly critical of the Sindh High Court order that allowed what she described as an ‘underage girl’ to go with her husband, though there was a law that prohibited marriages of girls aged less than 18 years.She said the women complaint centre provided an opportunity to the women in distress for seeking recourse to legal way. She said that women were being empowered politically and socially.

She said that the Sindh Women Parliamentary Caucus had got Anjali Kumari, who was named Salma after her conversion to Islam, medically examined that proved she was even younger than 14 years. “But after allowing her to express free will, the court ruled that she may go with her husband,” the deputy speaker said.

Also read: Petition against forced conversion dismissed

She was expressing these views at a seminar titled ‘Working of women complaint cell’ of the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee.

She later told journalists that the Sindh government would adopt a legal course in the backdrop of the Wednesday ruling of the Sindh High Court.

Ms Raza said the law enacted by the assembly to prohibit marriage of girls aged less than 18 years reflected the political will of the Sindh government. She said when the law was passed the Council of Islamic Ideology issued an ‘edict’ for dissolving it.

She said religious minorities felt that girls belonging to their communities were converted to Islam under duress. She said the assembly would soon come up with legislation on forced conversions.

But it was unfortunate that legislators doing their job were threatened with dire consequences and the assemblies faced threats of dissolution, she said.

When the “independent judiciary” passed such orders, how many people would support legislators publicly, she asked.

She argued if there was an age limit for voters to choose their leaders for five years, how could it be fair that there was no age limit for the girls who were going to spend their entire life with someone. She said she failed to understand how a 13-year-old girl was allowed to record her free will. “When we spoke to Anjali she couldn’t even recite full kalima,” she said. She said that in some cases the standard of 18 years limit for free will was adhered to but in the recent case it was not considered.

She called for increasing the numerical strength of women in the police force which was just one per cent against a desirable 10 per cent of the total force.

Women were suppressed in terms of socio-economic and tribal formations, she said, adding that it was basically women who had to suffer or was to be mistreated under any circumstances at the level of society or a family given the fact they were living in a patriarchal society.

While responding to questions of journalists, she said everyone be it an institution like the judiciary was under pressure. “Some say they are our estranged brothers and some call for allowing them to set up offices,” she said.

She said she was not questioning conduct of judges but talking about their verdicts which was public property. She said the Sindh government would adopt legal course in the backdrop of Wednesday ruling of the high court.

Advocate Fauzia Zahoor said that World Economic Forum 2014 rates Pakistan as second worst in terms of countries ‘gender equality’ where women were under gender subordination.

Hyderabad CPLC chief Yaqoob Memon, official in charge of women complaint cell Nusrat Haris, senior CPLC member Anadil Rashdi, Syeda Quratul Ain, official in charge of the women complaint cell and others also spoke.

Published in Dawn, January 16th, 2015

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