PAKISTAN: A Marriage of Convenience?

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Apr 11 (IPS) Pakistan’s Mukhtaran Mai, who gained global
acclaim for daring to take her rapists to court, announced her marriage
last month to an already married police constable.

Mai said she was left with no choice after Nasir Abbas Gabol, 30, her
former bodyguard, threatened to kill himself, and his parents and first
wife, Shahla, begged her to agree to the marriage offer.

The announcement sent shock waves through women’s and rights circles
in the country. Mai, who has fought a valiant, 7-year-old battle against
tradition and patriarchy, was suddenly no longer a role model and icon.

&com;Mukhtaran Mai has fallen from being a national heroine to a
disappointment, even for the media,&com; asserts Karachi-based Najma
Sadeque, a founding member of Shirkat Gah, a non-governmental
organisation.

&com;One wishes she had not done it,&com; says Naeem Sadiq, a
business consultant here who actively campaigns on pro-democracy issues.

Sadiq who considers Mai an &com;exceptionally brave woman&com; is
concerned that her marriage sends a message that &com;she is promoting
polygamy&com;.

From a village, Meerwala in Punjab province, Mai who belongs to the Gujjar
tribe was raped in 2002 by men from the higher Mastoi tribe on the orders
of the village council, as punishment for an alleged offence committed by
her younger brother Shakoor.

Instead of committing suicide as is the custom in these conservative
villages, she took the rapists to court. Thirteen men are behind bars, and
the case drags on.

The news of her marriage to a man with four children on Mar. 15 is the
only blot on a public person who has become a world-wide symbol of courage
and fortitude.

&com;Look, I’m not going to explain my act. I cannot keep
everyone happy all the time. Only time will prove that what I did was done
as a last resort,&com; Mai told IPS in a phone interview from
Meerwala.

What Mai did was exercise her right to marry a man of her choice, as
enjoined in Islam and the Pakistan penal code.

In Islam, men are allowed to practice polygny (have multiple wives). But
men who can marry a maximum of four times, often flout the most stringent
condition – of treating all their wives equally.

&com;No matter what angle I look at it, and if this is a choice
marriage and not of convenience, I think she shouldn't have done
it since it immediately puts the first wife in a secondary, dispensable
and vulnerable position,&com; says Sadeque, who is adamant that the
precedent set is a bad one &com;sending the wrong message.&com;

&com;I also think it is embarrassing for those who helped
her,&com; she continues.

Anis Haroon, chairperson of the National Commission on Status of Women
(NCSW), has a different viewpoint. &com;Mai is a strong woman but not
a feminist. She failed to understand that she was overstepping the rights
of another woman. If she knew she would have resisted the pressure to
marry a selfish man.&com;

Mai defends her decision. By marrying Gabol she says, &com;I have
saved three women and 11 children.&com;

This is with reference to an abominable practice in rural Punjab –
‘watta satta’ or exchange marriages. Gabol’s two sisters
are married into his first wife’s family. Had he divorced her, his
sisters, who have three children each, would have been ignominiously
thrown out of their marital homes.

What is the guarantee that he will not marry a third or fourth time?
&com;I will cross the bridge when I come to it,&com; is all that
Mai says.

She insists that she has secured Gabol’s first wife’s interest
through a pre-nuptial agreement. He has agreed to spend five days in a
week in his village, Alipur, 15 kms from Meerwala, with Shahla and their
three children, she says.

&com;The house he lives in with his first wife was transferred to her
name as was a plot of land. All his income will go directly to her and
their children; I don’t want any part of it,&com; she declares.

How Mai will enforce the pre-nuptials in a country where women are
considered the property of their husbands is questionable.

Rashid Rehman, Mai’s counsel and a lawyer with the independent Human
Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) spoke to IPS over the phone from
Multan, in southern Punjab. He confirms the signing of the pre-nuptial,
describing it as a memorandum of understanding (MoU).

&com;It says he will not interfere in the working of the
non-governmental organisation (Mukhtar Mai Women’s Welfare
Organisation) run by Mai; will not spend more than five days in a month
with her and will give the house (the first wife is living in), a plot of
land and 10,000 rupees (roughly 120 dollars) or 80 percent of his monthly
salary (160 dollars) to his first wife,&com; says Rehman.

According to Professor Akaml Wasim, who is head of the legal faculty at
Hamdard Univerity, Karachi, &com;a Muslim woman has the right in Islam
to lay down certain condition to secure herself, and also her welfare
during marriage, before the signing of the nikahnama (marriage contract).
It’s called Taqliq.&com;

&com;She also has the right to amend or lay down further conditions at
a later stage,&com; he adds, citing examples from Jordanian, Syrian
and Iraqi legislation.

&com;If there is a breach in this contract, Mai has a right to file
for a divorce,&com; he explains.

Her legal counsel, Rehman, is of the opinion that the marriage may be a
marriage of convenience.

He reasons that &com;there was pressure on her from influential
parliamentarians to drop her case or go for an out-of-court settlement,
till a few months back&com;, a charge she disclosed at a press
conference in Islamabad on Feb. 6 and later confirmed to IPS naming, in
particular, the federal Defence Minister, Sardar Abdul Qayyum Jatoi.

&com;The minister told my uncle, Ghulam Hussain, that I should drop
the charges against the perpetrators of the Mastoi tribe, who were either
involved in the verdict of the panchayat (village council) against me or
gang raped me,&com; she is reported in the English-language Daily
Times as having told the press.

The minister has denied the charge.

Mai may have been seeking to counter the pressure with a marriage alliance
with the more powerful Gabol who are more influential than the Mastois,
the lawyer suggests.

Mai has been careful to ensure her husband has no claim on the donations
to her charity from Pakistan and abroad. Her NGO runs Meerwala’s
only three primary schools – two of them for girls – that provide
schooling for 600 girls and 100 boys. For women, there’s a shelter,
a resource centre with a lawyer that provides legal assistance, and a
mobile health clinic that takes medical assistance to their doorstep.

&com;There is nothing for me (in this marriage), just the right to
divorce,&com; she says. But not everyone is convinced.