KHYBER: A group of women lawyers from different districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, mostly youth, have formed a network to help protect legal and constitutional rights for tribal women and spread awareness among themof their basic rights.

Named as the Merged Districts Female Lawyers Network (MGFLN), the new organisation also has representation from Khyber, Bajaur, Kurram and North and South Waziristan districts with the total strength of 32.

Hamna Akram, president and a founding member of the network, toldDawnthat the idea was initially floated by three young women lawyers, including herself and it rapidly attracted more of their interested colleagues in the legal fraternity as majority of the lawyers working in the merged districts were men.

She said that the basic objective of MGFNL was to collectively resolve issues confronted by the women of merged districts who were mostly ignorant about their legal and constitutional rights and were also not allowed to approach local courts by male members of their families.

Founders of MGFLN also vow to create rights awareness

“We will educate the tribal women about the activities of our network outside courts along with fighting their legal battles inside courts” she said and added that tribal women were at the risk of depriving them of their legitimate rights in the name of local culture and traditions.

Ms Akram, however, regretted that women lawyers were themselves faced with multiple problems like absence of accommodation in the tribal distance, long distance travelling inside tribal areas for attending to their court hearings and above all personal security as they feel threatened from some extremist elements and also from male relatives of their female client.

Sabeeha Iqbal, another member of the network, toldDawnthat their legal battles for securing rights for tribal women were mostly challenged by tribal men, mostly tribal elders, who would press for the resolution of such problems through a local jirga instead of taking the cases to courts.

“Tribal women have no representation in these so-called jirgas and in most cases, the verdict of the jirga goes against them,” she said.

She said that relatives of their women clients also refuse to cooperate in cases particularly related to domestic violence against women and their share in inheritance.

She said that every effort was made by the tribal men to discourage their women relatives to take their case to local courts and they also threatened and intimidated women lawyers who were engaged in pleading their cases.

“We have resolved to help our tribal sisters no matter how adverse the circumstances are as they feel comfortable in explaining their plight to women lawyers instead of men or taking the matter to the male-dominated tribal jirgas,” she insisted.

Ms Sabeeha Iqbal said efforts would also be made to attract more educated tribal women towards the legal profession as they were more enlightened about issues and problems confronted by the local female population.

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2022