KARACHI, Dec 12: An NGO providing legal aid to women has urged the government not to consolidate the issues relating to divorce, dowry, maintenance and custody of children, etc. in one suit, in the proposed amendment to the law.

The Pakistan Women Lawyers Association (PAWLA) said the Law Commission had approved the draft law “Family Court Amendment Ordinance 2001” under which all such issues had been proposed to be consolidated in one suit. It would be detrimental to women’s interests, the NGO said.

It demanded that the women be left free to decide while filing a suit that whether she wished to pursue only for divorce or she wished to add any other issues such as maintenance, custody of children, dowry, etc. were also to be included in the suit.

PAWLA said that its experience had shown that the majority of suits filed for divorce by women were not contested and usually decided in six months to a year, but the cases of dowry, maintenance, custody of children were strongly contested and usually took a long time to be decided.