Posted on 04/18/2004 3:25:20 PM PDT by wagglebee
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Afsheen was just nine years old when she was married to a man four times her age to pay for a crime she did not commit.
Her father had killed someone and she had to marry a member of the victim's family as compensation under a centuries-old custom of Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun tribes.
Known as swara, the custom calls for a girl to be given away in marriage to an aggrieved family as part of settlement for murder perpetrated by one of her relatives.
"This marriage has ruined my life," said Afsheen, who is now a 19-year-old widow and languishing in a shelter for women in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
Peeping through a veil with just her eyes showing, the young woman says her uncle now wants her to marry her brother-in-law to settle another family feud -- another swara.
"It is a terrible custom. It does nothing but destroy the life of a poor girl. It must be abolished," she said.
The top court in the North West Frontier Province declared swara illegal in 2000 but the custom is still prevalent in the semi-autonomous tribal regions where Pakistani law seldom applies and where jirgas, or councils of tribal elders, settle disputes the old way.
Marriage of young girls in the settlement of disputes also takes place in rural parts of central Punjab province where the practice is known as vani.
In 2002, eight young women, including two sisters aged two and four, escaped vani marriages near the Punjab city of Mianwali after the Supreme Court of Pakistan said the practice violated the law and norms of civilized society.
"These are unIslamic practices," said Anis Ahmed, a scholar at the International Islamic University in the capital, Islamabad.
Islam provided for pardon, killing for killing or blood money as three options to settle murder, he said. "There is no other way and swara or any other such practice has no basis in Islam."
FIRE OF REVENGE But the tribesmen who favor swara argue that it averts bloodshed between Pashtun tribes who are known for their ferocity and obligation of revenge, or 'badal,' for any insult to individuals or the tribe. "Swara is the only option to keep the fire of revenge out," said tribesman Alam Afridi.
But human rights activists say using girls to settle men's disputes is unjust.
"It is very cruel to suggest that women should be sacrificed and sent to hell for life to make peace between the men," said Afrasiab Khattack, former head of the private Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
"Why do they use women as a commodity?" asks women's rights activist Rakhshanda Naz.
Most girls married under swara spend their lives in torment because their in-laws consider them symbols of a rival family, activists say.
"They are treated like enemies," said Samar Minallah, an anthropologist who produced a documentary highlighting the plight of women married under swara.
Entitled "Swara -- A Bridge over Troubled Waters," Minallah's documentary is based on interviews with swara victims.
In one scene, a middle-aged women sits beside her eight-year-old daughter, Norina, whose father has promised to give her away in swara after she reaches maturity to settle a dispute.
"Daughters are helpless," says Norina's mother, looking depressed. "Sons are never given away in settlement because we women folk are easy target," she says as Norina looks on.
"What could I do? I could not do anything. I am sad. I am sad," Norina says, tears trickling down her cheeks.
There are no reliable statistics for how many girls are given away in swara or vani every year in Pakistan. Rights activists say most cases go unreported in the conservative tribal communities.
"The victim of such practices is voiceless and helpless because the two parties involved in the deal are too powerful to be challenged ... by the girl," said Khattack.
"They get away with it because there is local communal consensus," he said, and called for joint efforts by the government and civil society to stop the practice.
"There is no other way and swara or any other such practice has no basis in Islam."
This "peaceful" religion seems to have a lot of these non-Islamic practices. So why do we need to be so "sensitive" to their religion when we are trying to defend America?
Wonder how the author defines "conservative."
Its Reuters anyone who believes in God is conservative, or possibly a Muslim who doesn't hate America.
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