Muslim women defy ‘tradition’
Train to be judges
MUMBAI, July 20, (RTRS): An Indian Muslim women’s rights organisation is training women to be qazis, or judges, a role traditionally reserved for men, amid growing demand for more representation for women.
The Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) is training its first intake of 30 women in Quaranic law, constitutional law and gender rights. The year-long programme aims to produce a steady stream of female qazis across India, its co-founder said.
The Indian constitution allows Muslims, the country’s biggest religious minority, to regulate matters such as marriage, divorce and inheritance through their own civil code.
The qazi, usually a hereditary title, plays an important role by solemnising marriage and finalising divorce and settlements.
“Traditionally, qazis have all been men, and their judgment has never been questioned, even if many are unfair to women,” said Zakia Soman, a co-founder of BMMA in Mumbai.
“But it’s important to have women hear and represent women who are in a vulnerable position. Besides, there is no bar on women qazis as per the Koran,” she said.
The move comes at a time of growing dissent against laws that activists say discriminate against Muslim women. A survey by BMMA last year showed more than 90 percent of Muslim women want to end the “triple talaq” divorce tradition and polygamy.
Last month, the Supreme Court said it would examine how far it could interfere in Muslim laws, as it heard a plea to end the practice allowing Muslim men to divorce their wives by saying “talaq” three times.
Muslims make up 13 percent of India’s 1.2 billion population, yet government data show they are among some of the most excluded and marginalised communities.
The women being trained to be qazis are largely community workers and activists from states including Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Bihar, Soman said.
There are some female qazis in Muslim-majority Malaysia and Indonesia.
Women qazis in India can help prevent child marriage, ensure that a woman marries willingly, and that a divorce is only granted after a period of reconciliation, and with fair terms for the woman, Soman said.
The All India Muslim Personal Law Board, a non-governmental institution that oversees the application of Muslim personal law in the country, has criticised the female qazis.
Police in Mumbai said they suspect a criminal gang which preys on poor people for their organs is behind a kidney transplant racket at a top hospital, the latest such case in India where a shortage of organs is fuelling a black-market trade.
A kidney transplant at the Hiranandani Hospital in a suburb of India’s financial capital, was stopped last week after the hospital was tipped off that the donor’s documents were fake.
“We have been the subject of a massive fraud,” Sujit Chatterjee, chief executive of Hiranandani Hospital, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
One hospital employee and six other people have been arrested in connection to the case, which has prompted the police to look into past transplants at the hospital.
“We are looking into the involvement of a criminal gang that finds poor people and makes false documents for them and takes them to hospitals posing as relatives,” a police spokesman said.
Commercial trade in organs is illegal in India, and only close relatives are allowed to donate to someone in need. Donations must be approved by a special committee at each hospital, that includes social workers and a state official.
More than 200,000 people in India need a new kidney every year and about 100,000 need a new liver, according to MOHAN Foundation, a non-governmental group focusing on organ donation.
But only 2 percent to 3 percent of this demand is met, as legal organ donations are rare largely because of ignorance and a cultural reticence.
The chronic shortage has fuelled a thriving black-market trade of illegal transplants and trafficking in organs as desperately ill people often turn to middlemen, agreeing to pay sums of 1 million rupees ($14,900) or more for a kidney.