A village council in Pakistan has decreed that five young women should be abducted, raped or killed for refusing to honour childhood "marriages".
The women, who are cousins, were married in absentia by a mullah in their Punjabi village to illiterate sons of their family's enemies in 1996, when they were aged from six to 13.
The marriages were part of a compensation agreement ordered by the village council and reached at gunpoint after the father of one of the girls shot dead a family rival.
The rival families have now called in their "debt", demanding the marriages to the village men are fulfilled.
Thankfully, the young women’s fathers are supporting them and are refusing to marry their daughters off. But the case is becoming increasingly controversial and violent--two people have been shot and 20 arrested in related incidents.
Not only have the young women been sentenced, but Jehan Khan Niazi--the father of three of the women--has been sentenced to death for refusing to produce his daughters for marriage.
Niazi said, “I have refused to give into the council's request as it is un-Islamic. I cannot hand over my girls like goats...”
Niazi’s daughters--who are are all in school, the oldest in college--say they will kill themselves if forced to marry.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Pakistani village council orders five women to be raped or killed.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/2807
Weekly Feministing Newsletter
Feministing RSS Feed
Oh, and just in case you need a reminder, this is being carried out by a U.S. puppet regime.
Re:"Oh, and just in case you need a reminder, this is being carried out by a U.S. puppet regime."
Exactly...and one that gets billions of $$$$ in Western aid and military weapons. It just goes to show that corrupt sexist Muslim dictatorships are "bad" if they oppose the US, like Iran or Syria. However, to the neo-cons, they are "good" if, like Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, they support the US. What hypocrisy. I cry for the women of Pakistan. Defense contactors are laughing though........
if it wasn't a "puppet regime" you'd never even hear about it. so i guess having western media access is going to do some good after all.
Niazi said, “I have refused to give into the council's request as it is un-Islamic. I cannot hand over my girls like goats...”
This is the voice of hope. In a society that treats woman as chattel the more male allies they have the better. Niazi is taking a real risk here - people have already been killed in this dispute, and he is putting his life on the line to support his daughters. Not only is he standing by his family, he is also challenging the prevailing theology in a region where theological disputes are often settled with AK-47s.
I realize that this observation shifts the focus from the personhood of the women being threatened with religiously sanctioned rape and murder, but the only way that change will happen is if people stand up and demand it, regardless of gender. If it takes a male voice to get the message through, so be it.