JAVED KHAN
PESHAWAR
The provincial government is considering introducing legislation to tackle the hundred year old custom of Vani-known as Swara in the province.
This was disclosed by the provincial Minister for Labor Shaukat Yousafzai here on Friday.
Vani is a custom found in parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Pakistan and Afghanistan where girls, often minor, are given in marriage or servitude to an aggrieved family as compensation to end disputes, often murder.
The custom is a form of arranged or forced child marriage, and the result of punishment decided by a council by a council of family or tribal elders under the patronage of Jirga.
Sources at the KP law department with knowledge of the development said that preparations for introducing the bill to tackle the custom will be soon introduced in the provincial assembly.
He said that the law will be made in such a way to criminalize the Vani with severe punishments for the council or Jirga who orders it.
Shaukat Yousafzai while describing the negative impact of the Vani custom said that the punishment for one’s deeds should not be given to anyone else, today’s woman is educated and aware, and there should be no law to force a woman to get married. Adequate legislation to curb the menace is urgently needed to stop such a ritual, he added, that police had taken action several times in this regard but the accused of Vani always remain to escape owing to loopholes in the law. After the promulgation of the 1971 constitution, the Pakistani government, which made Sharia its prime legislative source, has forbidden and discouraged Vani as being un-Islamic and cruel. However, the custom still continues to be practiced and when the matter between the two sides reaches the point of murder, the two sides are reconciled according to the tribal method, under which the people of the slain party are the killers.
Asking for a girl, sister, or niece in peace, many times the relationship of two girls is asked at the same time, this ritual is called “Swara”.
