Title: Women's panel
pitches for triple talaq ban
Author:
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: April 4, 2000
Stoking the debate on
Muslim Personal Law, the National Commission for Women (NCW) today demanded
a banning of verbal talaq that leads to instant divorce. "This is the commission's
first report on a minority community and our public hearings revealed that
Muslim women are suffering because of the practice of triple talaq," NCW
chairperson Vibha Parthasarathy said.
The commission today
released two reports - one on rape laws and the other on the minority community.
In its recommendations, the NCW demanded that marital rape be recognised
as an offence and vetoed the proposal for death sentence for rapists. Since
the NCW does not have any statutory power to make its recommendations binding,
the reports will only succeed in sharpening the debate on Muslim Personal
Law, marital rape and capital punishment for rapists.
The report - "Voice of
the voiceless" - is rooted in 13 public hearings spread over 18 months
in different parts of the country. Women in Chennai, Calcutta, Hyderabad,
Bangalore, Mumbai and Tezpur spoke about their sufferings before a bench
of retired judges and social workers.
The Muslim Personal Law
is already a sensitive subject and a large chunk of the community is against
any tampering with its Personal Law. The BJP has been the only party to
squarely put on its agenda the demand for a repeal of the Muslim Personal
Law. Its partners in the NDA are doggedly opposed to it.
The NCW report said Muslim
intellectuals, theologians and scholars must look for a way to scrap "outdated"
laws and the solution could be found within the framework of the shariat.
Sayeeda Hameed, NCW member who authored the report on the Muslim community,
said there has been substantive reforms within the Muslim Personal Law
and India is lagging behind.
"There is unstated abolition
of verbal talaq in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Jordan and Morocco. There are
others like Turkey, Algeria, Iraq, Iran and Indonesia which have slapped
restrictions on extra-judicial and unilateral divorces," said Hameed. The
report rues that the Muslim community in India has "refused" to take note
of the strides made by women all over the world.
Parthasarathy said she
was surprised at the approval from many Muslim women for banning triple
talaq. "It is amazing how many of them want change," she said. She said
the government cannot intervene in this. "The changes have to come from
within the community and there was a need to codify laws governing marriage,
inheritance and divorce," she added. The report is a revelation on the
state of Muslim women saying that there is an alarming rise in backwardness
among 60 million Muslim women. Two thirds of them are illiterates at the
national level and they have practically no employment opportunities, it
says.
The report dealing with
rape laws strongly argued against death penalty for rapists. "One of our
main arguments is that a death penalty will further slash the already feeble
4 per cent conviction cases," said Parthasarathy.
