by Heather Carreiro

Created on: July 05, 2008

The uproar created by the hardline Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) party, in response to a bill regarding women's rights, clearly highlights the fact that gender bias is alive and well in Pakistan. The bill, introduced in November 2006, sought to give greater inheritance rights to women, create a path for legal action against spurious divorces, and to criminalize widespread cultural practices that discriminate against women. Some of the current practices that the MMA wishes to uphold include the following.

1. INHERITANCE LAWS

According to the Qur'an, women receive half the property that men do in inheritance law. In Pakistan, most women are expected to give up even their half share of property to their brothers out of "respect," but in rural society it means that basically gets NO share of the inheritance. Many people will argue that getting a half-share of property is better than getting no share of property, which may have been the common practice regarding women in pre-Islamic times.

2. VANI

Vani is usually a child marriage to pay off a family member's debts or crimes. If my father were to murder a man, he could marry me off (at the age of 12 or 10 or maybe even 7) to pay for the crime. I would then be married off to a family that would be engaged in a continual blood feud with my family and I would likely be treated as a slave in their house.

3. FORCED MARRIAGES

This is a difficult one, because usually the girl or boy will not even stand up to the parents to say that they do not want to go through with the marriage. Most children, in rural or lower class families, do not even dream that they would have a choice when it comes to marriage. They are obliged to respect their parents wishes and marry whomever the parents choose. In some cases, young good looking girls are married off to better off old men looking for a second or third wife. The girls are pressured into the marriage because their families are poor and will take advantage of the money they will get for the bride.

4. EASY DIVORCE

In Islam men can legally divorce their wives by saying "I divorce you" three times. The Pak government is trying to make this illegal so that men will not divorce their wives so easily or in a fit of rage. Divorce is a big deal for women because after being divorced a women is considered as "used goods" and may not be able to marry again. As women move out and move in with the in-laws when they get married, a divorced women is kicked out of her in laws house and may or may not be

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