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| India-Pakistan |
| SC calls for vigilance against Jirga system |
| 2013-07-12 |
| [Dawn] The Supreme Court ordered law-enforcement agencies on Thursday to remain vigilant and take swift and strict action to ensure that girls and women were not exchanged to settle local disputes through the Jirga system. A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry also asked the federal and provincial governments to ensure that people were protected against highhandedness by implementing the court's previous judgments and relevant laws that discouraged the Jirga system. Under the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act of 2005, section 310A was inserted into the Pakistain Penal Code (PPC) and the custom of giving women for the sake of peace was declared a crime. That section has now been replaced by the Prevention of Anti-Women Practices (Criminal Law Amendment) Act of 2011. The Supreme Court in its April 24, 2006, verdict had also asked the government to amend section 310 of the PPC or make an insertion in the Family Act of 1964 to dissolve marriages conducted under 'wani'. The court had asked the registrars of the high courts and the presidents and general secretaries of the district and tehsil bar associations to set up legal aid committees to help the victims whenever cases of wani or swara were reported to them. |
| Posted by:Fred |