ISLAMABAD, Aug 8: It was a rare women’s day in the National Assembly on Tuesday when they and their male allies overcame party affiliations and conservative obstructions to introduce three private bills to promote women’s rights.

After stormy proceedings centring on whether they conformed to Islamic teachings or not, the lower house majority voted for the introduction of the two bills seeking to protect women from domestic violence and a third seeking to amend a controversial Hadood ordinance about rape and adultery.

The bills, authored mainly by women members from both sides of the political divide, will now be considered by a house standing committee before coming back to be debated and voted upon for passage.

Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain earlier cut short a debate on another opposition private bill seeking to allow one-dish wedding meals and deferred it until the next private members’ day on August 15 after it seemed set for passage despite divisions across party lines because of formal support announced by the ruling coalition.

The speaker’s rostrum was twice besieged by opposition and ruling coalition members seeking deletion of objectionable remarks or to press a point during furores.

The main Prevention of Domestic Violence Bill seeking to make provisions for the protection of women, children and family was moved by Mrs Sherry Rehman of the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) while another — The Domestic Violence Against Women (Prevention and Protection) — by Mrs Mehnaz Rafi of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League who got her draft to be clubbed with the first one.

Mrs Rehman said her proposed legislation, which has been waiting on the house roster for a year, was needed because there was no provision now in the Pakistan Penal Code against domestic violence while women frequently became victims of offences such as acid-throwing, beatings and Kara-Kari honour killings.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Niazi provoked an uproar mainly from PPP benches as he opposed the introduction of the bill arguing that it was contrary to the Holy Quran, which, according to him, permitted repeated beating of disobedient women by their husbands — an interpretation disputed by several opposition members, including some Ulema from the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) alliance.

“If a wife is not on the right path, admonish her; if she does not change, then beat her; if she does not change even then, beat her again; and if that also does not work then send her out of the home,” he quoted the Holy Quran as saying.

PPP’s main legal Aitzaz Ahsan, one of the 14 other sponsors of Mrs Rehman’s bill, said the constitution guaranteed equal rights to men and women and the new legislation sought to rectify the situation cited by the minister through a “wrong interpretation” of the Quranic verses and that allowed “man’s barbarism over woman”.

As PPP members pressed for a vote, Law and Justice Minister Mohammad Wasi Zafar agreed to the reference of the bill to the house standing committee concerned, apparently to avoid a formal test of strength between the two sides while the ruling coalition seemed divided on the issue.

Several ruling coalition members voted for Mrs Rehman’s bill as did the PPP for the bills of Mrs Rafi’s draft and Ms Tariq’s Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hadood) Amendment Bill, which seeks to amend the Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hadood) Ordinance of 1979 that was enforced by then military ruler General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq.

While some members of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) alliance cheered Mr Niazi’s opposition to the bills of Mrs Rehman and Ms Tariq, some others disputed the minister’s interpretation of Quranic injunctions.

MMA’s Mrs Samia Raheel Qazi and pro-MMA Maulana Merajuddin from the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas cited the Holy Quran’s Sura Al-Nisa (Women) provided for admonishment of a woman destroying family life in violation of the Sharia and a slight beating without causing any injury was allowed only on the third stage after the husband’s counsel and separation of beds failed to change her attitude.

 

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