MADYAN: One sunny afternoon as she skipped home from school, Saneeda was accosted by her estranged father, who wanted to marry her to a man she’d never met to settle a debt of “honour”. She was five. A few months earlier, Saneeda’s father Ali Ahmed had eloped with a girl from another valley. To avoid violent revenge from her family, he promised to give them his daughter and niece Sapna in marriage.
Offering young girls as brides in compensation to settle disputes persists in many areas of deeply conservative Pakistan.
In Saneeda’s home district of Swat, in the country’s northwest, the practice is known as “swara”. Government data show that it is on the rise in Swat, four years after an army operation ended the Taliban’s brutal two-year rule in the scenic valley.
Nine cases were registered in the area in 2013, up from just one in 2012. Rights groups say the true number is much higher.
“We initially thought they can’t take this girl away but then they increased pressure with every passing day to give her in swara,” Fazal Ahad, Saneeda’s maternal uncle, said.
Eventually Saneeda’s family got a court order protecting her. Police arrested her father and the jirga members who had decided to give her in swara.
A lucky escape, but Saneeda, now aged seven, still faces discrimination and mockery.
Saneeda was unusual in that her family challenged the jirga’s ruling. In Pakistan’s patriarchal society, airing the “dirty laundry” in public in this way is very rare.
The authorities do not keep detailed data on swara, but Samar Minallah, an activist who made an acclaimed documentary on the practice, said she had identified at least 132 cases around Pakistan in 2012.
The other girl given by Saneeda’s father, 16-year-old Sapna, had to abide by the jirga ruling and settled with the husband they chose for her. Ahad said the nine Swara cases reported in Swat are just the tip of the iceberg, but victims were becoming increasingly willing to speak out.
Forced marriage under swara is against the law, but police say that even when a complaint is brought there is great reluctance among witnesses to give statements.
Officers arrested 65 suspects in the nine swara cases in 2013, including Saneeda’s father, Khan said, but their fate rests with the courts. Women’s rights groups say the govt needs to do more to crack down on swara.
Minallah says that nothing will change until the police and prosecutors are prepared to challenge the authority of local elders -- a difficult task in areas where such traditional power structures are deeply entrenched.
AFP
