Triple talaq ban isn't enough. Here are five laws women urgently need
In its urgency to push through the Triple Talaq Bill, the government appears to have overlooked five criminal laws relating to women and marriage identified in 2015 by a government committee as needing immediate political attention. These are: Criminalising marital rape, clarifying the definition of ‘cruelty by husband and his relatives’, plugging a loophole in the anti-dowry law, ensuring the same age of marriage for women and men, and outlawing khap panchayats that impinge on the right to choose whom one wants to marry.
Over the last two weeks, the Triple Talaq Bill or the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill has been extensively debated in Parliament, with the proposed legislation now stalled in the Rajya Sabha (upper house of Parliament) till the budget session begins later this month. The bill seeks to turn the practice of talaq-e-biddat, or instant triple talaq, which allows a Muslim man to divorce his wife by uttering the word talaq three times in quick succession, into a “cognizable and non-bailable offence”. It proposes a prison term that “may extend to three years” and a fine for Muslim men who are guilty of instant triple talaq. This law also provides for subsistence allowance to affected women and custody of minor children as “determined by the magistrate”. The government has been criticised for pushing the proposed legislation without holding discussions with Muslim women while outwardly seeming to protect their rights. “[It] pushes Muslim women into incarcerating their husbands. What is frightening is that it gives power to a third person to file a criminal charge. How will this sword of criminalisation be used in the current atmosphere where anti-minority feelings are heightened?” said this opinioneditorial in the Asian Age from January 8, 2017. Union minister of law and justice Ravi Shankar Prasad, who introduced the bill in the Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament), said the government views the bill not through the lens of “siyasat” (politics) but “insaniyat” (humanity), according to this Indian Express report from December 29, 2017. A ban on triple talaq had been recommended by the high-level committee in its four-volume report on the status of women in India. “There should be a complete ban on the oral, unilateral and triple divorce (talaq) as it renders wives extremely vulnerable and insecure regarding their marital status,” the report said. The committee did not specify if the practice should be criminalised. The expert committee, formed in 2013–25 years after the last such panel– submitted the report to the ministry of women and child development department after “two years of poring over data and reports, widespread consultations, intense and insightful meetings, independent research and more importantly many hours of listening to women in the field”.
In volume two of the study, the panel recommended several measures to ameliorate the status of women across communities, in fields relating to the economy, environment and law. In its assessment of women and criminal law, the committee lists several recommendations, not restricted to Muslim personal laws alone, to help women through legislation and the justice system. These range from proposing new laws and amendments to improving the infrastructure to protect female victims of violence and women’s representation in the judiciary.
ARTICLE SOURCE- BUSINESS STANDARD.