PESHAWAR: A Khyber Agency resident on Friday moved the Peshawar High Court seeking the outlawing of an anti-women custom, ghag, in tribal areas and orders for the federal government and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor to make appropriate regulations for its elimination.

He also sought protection against three people, who recently invoked ghag against his daughter by announcing that she should be married to one of them and prohibited him from marrying her elsewhere.

Dawlat Khan filed a petition requesting the high court to issue directives to the federal government and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor to make appropriate regulation to eliminate ghag from tribal areas.

He requested the court to declare ghag an inhuman, illegal, un-Islamic and unconstitutional custom.

The ghag custom is prevalent in parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata and that the high court has taken several cases against it in the recent times.

In 2013, the then provincial government enacted the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Elimination of the Custom of Ghag Act 2013 on the directives of the high court and declared the custom a penal offence.

In the said law, ‘ghag’ is defined as: “a custom, usage, tradition or practice whereby a person forcibly demands or claims the hand of a woman, without her own or her parents’ or wali’s will and free consent, by making an open declaration either by words spoken or written or by visible representation or by an imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, in a locality or before public in general that the woman shall stand engaged to him or any other particular man and that no other man shall make a marriage proposal to her or marry her, threatening her parents and other relatives to refrain from giving her hand in marriage to any other person, and shall also include obstructing the marriage of such woman in any other manner pursuant to such declaration.”

In the petition filed through senior lawyer Mohammad Essa Khan, Dawlat Khan said while a law, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Elimination of Custom of Ghag Act 2013, was enacted for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa there was no such like law in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) to check this inhuman custom.

The petitioner said his daughter, Noornama, had learned the holy Quran by heart and currently worked at a seminary for girls students in Jamrud area of Khyber Agency as administrator.

He said few years ago, three inhabitants of his area, including Galas Khan, Janas Khan and Sadeeq Khan, raised ‘ghag’ (which stands for one-sided demand from male side to have engaged a female member of his family for purpose of marriage) and announced that his daughter would be married to Sadeeq Khan.

The petitioner stated that he approached elders of the locality who gave verdict in his on Oct 21, 2010.

He added that he also approached Jamia Imdadul Uloom Islamia, Peshawar for obtaining religious opinion and the edict given by Mufti Mohammad Usman on Mar 8, 2014, opined in unambiguous terms that nikkah against the will of a woman and her wali was not legal.

He said the said three respondents were not ready to abandon their illegal claim, due to which he moved an application to the political administration on Feb 24, 2015 for redressal of his grievances, but no action was taken against them.

The petitioner said under the ghag custom, his daughter was restrained to contract marriage elsewhere at her will and if not rescued, she would have either to marry Sadeeq Khan or to live rest of her life without marriage.

Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2015

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