Recently in South Asia cases of murders after rape of
children and infants as young as 8 month have increased to unmatched
proportions. These heinous crimes raised an outcry for the perpetrators to be
held accountable and finally the lackadaisical authorities sprung into action
and nabbed a few while many remain at large. The case in point in this piece is
of Zainab, an 8 year old girl from Kasur Punjab, who was trapped by one of the neighbor
through his devious tricks. After subjecting that innocent child to multiple
rapes he killed her and dumped her body in the waste. Although this act should
be condemned to hilt but this should also elicit others to reflect where they
stand as society. Therefore it’s equally important to confess the malaise that
have been affecting this region since time immemorial. In India and Pakistan
girls in their days of innocence were married off in yesteryears and this
practice continues to this very day, albeit not openly. The determining factor
if a child is to be married or not was the puberty, if they have reached
puberty it was ok to marry them whereas the age of puberty was determined
according to the customary or the religious laws. This practice hasn’t ceased
and takes place not openly but clandestinely at many areas, which begs the
question if this under age marriage isn’t a form of marital rape? How many
Zainab’s have suffered in the past and how many more are at the risk of
suffering the same afflictions. It’s time that such antediluvian practice
should be given up and for the society to not only settle with the arrest of
the perpetrators but demand fool proof legislation and strict implementation
against underage marriages.
Submitted by B.H.
But apart from legislation, the mindset of people has to change it and for it to happen, the government has to constantly hamper it via various media campaign. Changing mindset is the key for which no amount of legislation can replace
ReplyDeleteI agree but There are two approaches of change one is bottoms up other is top down and both are equally important. While the bottoms up approach has been employed by the civil society et al. The top down approach I.e gaovernment’s mediation still lags and needs to be employed on war footings.
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