A lot has been said about the Women’s Protection Act of Punjab and one would have thought the topic would have been done and dusted by now. The Act consists of 31 clauses which provide a proper system for complaint registration as well as penalties for offenders.
Women being protected from all forms of violence, what could be wrong in that?
Apparently, a lot.
All the religious parties in Pakistan have demanded that the government withdraw the bill. On the one hand, they term it un-Islamic while on the other, they say Islam does not allow violence on women. So if there is no violence allowed then why be against something that goes even further and protects the woman?
Maulana Fazlur Rehman even went far enough to say the law has poison in it. He said that many of the clauses contradict Sunnah. This still very much counters their statement saying Islam does not allow violence against women.
Mufti Naeem commented earlier that the law is not needed since just a mere 1% of women go through domestic violence. Does he know how many women exist in Pakistan and what a huge number, the (supposed) 1% he is dismissing actually amounts to? If the number of women abused does not reach 10,000,000 the violence should be swept under the carpet and be ignored? And let’s not even get to the cases which go unreported and unrecorded.
A lot of the complaints revolve around the man who assaults his wife being told to leave the home instead of the woman. He is also required to wear a GPS so his movements can be tracked.
They say that is an insult to the dignity of a man to leave and to wear such a thing.
I think it would rather be a humongous insult to the man’s dignity IF he assaults his wife. But then that is just me and not the Maulanas teaching us about dignified behavior.
There can be no arguments in favor of a man being allowed to assault and beat his wife or women in general. None.
A man who does not intend on beating his wife would not have any problems with the bill. It does not affect him or his wife or his family. He should welcome it, for the people who do this will be the ones punished, not him.
As for marriages breaking up, should a woman who is regularly beaten by her husband stay in such an abusive marriage in the first place?
And no, since people will bring up children, they are equally affected by such marriages as are by broken ones. Perhaps even more.
If the wife is so desperate and has nowhere to go, or is pushed down by the social stigma of “what will people say” and “bringing shame to the family,” the poor woman will probably not even report the violence to the police in the first place – leaving her marriage quite ‘intact.’
There will be women who will abuse the law too; but even that has been taken into consideration. There is a fine as well as jail time in place.
And putting all that aside, people who have never raised their voice for a raped woman, for the woman who killed herself due to lack of justice, are in no position to have a say over women rights.
They never showed this much uproar for when an 11-year-old child was married off to a 50-yea-old man and died a week later due to internal injuries.
They conveniently turned deaf and dumb when a man threw acid on the face of a woman who said no to marrying him.
They secretly smiled at the brother who killed his sister because he saw her talking to a boy he did not like.
What gives them the right to have a say in this when they have been quiet all along regarding every other atrocity that has taken place against women? Who makes them the experts? Just because they are scholars?
Here, they are openly going against a law that is there to protect women. What is the point of such scholars when they are only encouraging violence with their stance?
“Islam does not allow violence against women and we shall support every law that backs this up.” THIS is what they should be saying.
THIS! No ifs and buts. There are no gray areas here.
Think about the times when families pressurize daughters-in-law to get dowry from their respective families and this continues well into the marriage too. How many cases are there of families abusing them (daughters-in-law) to the point they actually die?
Countless.
Are we just supposed to express our grief when we read about such cases by shaking our heads and then moving on the to the next news? Is it not better to prevent such things from taking place entirely?
Won’t the woman have been better off had the family/husband been punished before it got to the point where she didn’t exist anymore? What about the children she left behind then? Suddenly, nobody is thinking of them anymore.
Every single person who wants the Women's Protection Act in Punjab to be withdrawn is nothing more than a person with a severe inferiority complex who doesn't want to be punished by law when he beats, rapes, abuses, harasses, throws acid on women, etc.
They come equipped with a mentality that man is superior to a woman and thus holds power over her. That includes the right to hit her when he wishes to.
This also goes for the women who agree to be violated against and think it as being completely acceptable behavior. There are many women out there who support the weak, spineless characters who abuse and use religion to further their own agenda.
If you are against the Act, it simply means you are saying it is okay to beat and rape women.