These
case studies show how triple talaq tears lives of Muslim women apart
By PTI | Updated: Apr 23, 2017, 11.43 AM IST
NEW DELHI: Afrin was always fond of the social media. For the
22-year-old Shahjahanpur resident, it was a form of refuge -- an escape from a
life torn apart by four years of a tumultuous marriage.
One chilly January evening this year, she was
lost in a happy reverie, scrolling down her Facebook timeline, featuring
mundane updates on love, life and poetry, punctuated with news, when a post hit
her.
It was from her husband. "Talaq, Talaq,
Talaq, طلاق طلاق طلاق" it said.
Afrin read the three words over and over again
as her three-year-old daughter scattered toys all over the bed, some of which
fell to the floor with a loud jangle.
It was merely the beginning of Afrin's trial. A
day later, her mobile beeped with an incoming message. It read, "Talaq,
Talaq, Talaq".
Her husband had expressed his determination loud
and clear. As if the relentless torture with unending dowry demands was not
enough, Afrin was now being booted out.
"She was always happy as a child. But the
incidents seem to have irreversibly changed her life," Afrin's mother,
Fareeda Begum, told PTI from Uttar Pradesh's Shahjahanpur.
Afrin has been taken to a relative's house, away
from her maternal home, as the husband's family has been threatening to take
her daughter away, her mother said.
Her husband's way to annul the marriage, which
in Islam is a civil contract based on consent, has broken Afrin's spirit. And
it is this form of termination that is at the heart of a raging dispute on
the practice of triple talaq.
The issue came to the fore in February last year
when Shayara Bano, a triple talaq victim, petitioned the Supreme Court, seeking
a ban on the divorce form, polygamy and nikah halala, a practice under which a
divorced Muslim woman has to marry again, consummate the marriage and then
break it if she wants to go back to her first husband.
Thousands of Muslim women across the country
have since formed pressure groups and spearheaded signature campaigns demanding
the abolition of the practice.
Shayara's case has been clubbed with a clutch of
similar petitions by the apex court, which will hear the matter from May 11.
The Centre has already taken a stand against triple talaq.
The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB)
claims Shariat upholds the validity of triple talaq - under which a Muslim
husband can divorce his wife by merely pronouncing the word "talaq"
three times.
Talaq, or divorce, can be obtained in either of
two ways. Under 'talaq-ul-sunnat', there has to be a three-month period, called
'iddat', between the pronouncement of talaq by a husband and a lawful
separation. But 'talaq-e-bidat' authorises a man to do so in a single sitting.
However, over the years, a campaign against triple talaq -
which experts say finds no mention in the Quran -- has snowballed into a
movement, riding on the woes of thousands of Muslim women whose husbands have
walked off by just uttering these three words. Some took absurd routes, such as
pronouncing talaq in text messages and, in recent times, on Facebook.
Like several others, Afrin has mustered the
courage to approach the police against her husband who took advantage of the contentious
provisions of the Muslim Personal Law.
As the debate on triple talaq, polygamy and
nikal halala rages, these women from across the country are fighting a battle
not just with the law board but within themselves as they find their lives
weighed down by the stigma attached to divorces.
Take 24-year-old Rubina, who married an affluent
man double her age, in 2015 to be able to financially support her family. But
soon after marriage, he started threatening her with divorce.
"Society has completely ostracised me and
people molest me or behave inappropriately when I go for job interviews,"
Rubina, who has been living away from her husband, said. "I have nowhere
to go."
Some of these victims have knocked the door of
the apex court seeking a stringent law against these "oppressive"
practices, hoping to safeguard the future of other women and balance gender
equations within the community.
Among those seeking change is Rizwana, a
33-year-old Railways employee in Delhi. One of the petitioners in the SC
against polygamy, she married Indian Air Force employee Mohammed Khalid in
2012. But Khalid, it turned out, had deceitfully married her by concealing his
two previous marriages, which she discovered within a year of their marriage.
"I found two dependant cards in my
husband's bag issued by the Air Force which carried names and photographs of
two women addressed as his spouse," she said.
When Rizwana sought a divorce, Khalid held that
Islam allowed him to marry without divorcing his wives.
Being a government servant may have made Rizwana
financially independent, but it took away from her the right to alimony or any
kind of monetary relief from her estranged husband.
"In our country, women with government jobs
are not entitled to alimony. Men want to marry a woman who holds a government
job, then torture her for dowry and easily divorce her without the fear of
liability," she said.
Leading a similarly onerous and painful life is
37-year- old Farzana. The Kanpur-based single mother was tortured by her
husband who demanded dowry and concealed his first marriage from her.
"Some years into the marriage, I found out through
neighbours that he had married earlier. It came as a shock to me but I could
not do much and tried to work my marriage out for the sake of my
children."
In 2009, she filed a domestic violence and
maintenance case against her husband and in-laws.
"But I have not got any relief yet. I applied for
divorce also which is pending before a court in Kanpur," she said.
Shia scholars from across the country dispute
the claim of orthodox Sunni clerics, saying that the Shariat, made up of
writings in the Quran and Hadith, which are accounts of the Prophet's words and
actions, does not allow 'talaq' at one go.
The controversy, in many ways, is reminiscent of the Shah
Bano case of the Eighties, which was a landmark step in Muslim women's fight
for social justice and equality -- but with a disappointing end.
In 1985, the SC had decisively ruled in favour
of Bano, who had sought maintenance from her husband who had divorced her. But
following a backlash from orthodox Muslim groups, the then Rajiv Gandhi
government diluted the order through an Act.
The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on
Divorce) Act, 1986, gave Muslim woman the right to maintenance only for the
period of iddat (about three months) after a divorce. Her relatives or the Waqf
Board are to take care of her after that.
Read more at:
No comments:
Post a Comment