PESHAWAR: In Pashto, they say a mother would not feed her baby until it cries to be fed. The principle can be applied to elders as well where women in mainland Pakistan got a protection bill against domestic violence and other rights because they had a voice and platforms to demand one.

But when it comes to women in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, they don’t exist for the society in tribal borderlands and the rest of Pakistan because they cannot be seen, much less heard.

Does that mean they are not potential victims of violence, domestic or not? Far from it, the British, when they made the Frontier Crimes Regulation more than a century ago, thought they were perpetrators when they apparently protected men against or so it seems when one looks at Section 30 of the law.

Defining adultery in sub-section 1 of Section 30 of FCR says: “A married woman who, knowingly and by her own consent, has sexual intercourse with any man who is not her husband, is guilty of the offence of adultery, and shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to five years, or with fine, or with both.”

Its sub-section (2) says cognizance shall not be taken of an offence under this section unless a complaint has been made by the husband of the woman, or, in his absence, by a person who had care of the woman on his behalf at the time when the offence was committed.

FCR targets women by reinforcing local notion, which blames them for ‘honour crimes’

Ironically, the said section of the FCR does not suggest any penalty for the man, if he is involved in illicit relations with a married woman. The cases of adultery are usually decided by a jirga – even though the Hudood and Tazeer laws has been extended to Fata – that is bound by the FCR. By not blaming the men for adultery, the FCR clearly takes the dominant honour-bound tribal view and even reinforces it that women are to blame for digression.

Former president Asif Ali Zardari has been taking credit for making some amendments to the FCR to make it a little bit human friendly. Women in general and men above the age of 65 years and children below 16 years have been exempted from jail term under the collective and territorial responsibility clauses of the law.

However, Zardari’s legal experts, who had amended the FCR, ignored Section 30.

Officers and lawyers familiar with the FCR don’t understand the ‘logic and wisdom’ behind this particular section of the FCR in which only woman has been targeted.

A senior officer in the Civil Secretariat Fata wondered what the British government had in mind while including Section 30 in the FCR.

“I sent many notes to the top hierarchy to remove this one-sided section from the law, but in vain,” he said.

“Local customs, traditions and norms suggest death for both man and woman if they are found guilty of making illicit relations,” he said.

Unlike womenfolk of the country’s settled areas, around 48 per cent women of the total Fata population have no representation in both houses of parliament.

Similarly, there is no national commission on the status of women for Fata. In the past, a proposal was under consideration to set up separate commission on the status of women for Fata but it was later dropped.

Another official in the directorate of social welfare Fata said no pro-women and pro-children laws had been extended to Fata so far. A policy about women in Fata was drafted in 2014, but the document did not see light of the day.

The citizens and society in tribal areas is devoid of the concepts or enforcement of basic rights. More so the women are oppressed by the tribal system and its male-dominated outlook that blames women for crimes of honour.

From forced marriages to denial of property rights, the women’s destiny is dictated by male members of the family. Consider ghag, a custom in tribal areas, whereby if a man proposes or intends to propose a girl and her parents refuse, all that man has to do is to fire gunshots at her house’s gate to claim that he has the right to marry her only.

Firing of gunshots or ghag, which literally means announcement, is actually a declaration that other men were restricted to ask for hand of the girls after it. The custom prevalent in tribal areas often deprives girls to be forced to the same man or remain unmarried for the rest of their lives because other men have been warned against marrying her and that if somebody tries to violate his claim, it will mean trouble for him.

The ghag custom has been declared an offence in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa through the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Elimination of Customs of Ghag Ordinance, 2012.

Under Section 4 of the law, whoever violates or abets in the violation of the provisions of Section 3, shall be punishable with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years but shall not be less than three years and shall also be liable to fine up to five hundred thousand rupees or both.

But there is no legal mechanism to protect women of Fata against these customs.

Razia, a resident of Kurram Agency, has become victim of custom of Ghag when her parents declined the marriage proposal of a man, who was already married.

She herself was not willing to give her hand. The man refused to withdraw his claim. More than three decades later, Razia may possibly have thought that she had no option but to strangulate herself to death. She finished her life about three years ago.

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2016