Woman Battling Slavery Wins Another Week
Daily Times [Pakistan] Monitor
LAHORE: The court hearing the adultery case against Aisha Parveen, a Pushtun woman kidnapped and forced to work in a brothel since she was 14, has been adjourned for one week, with the press attention of her case probably having a positive affect, reports the New York Times.
“Ms Parveen’s court hearing was yesterday (Monday), and I was afraid that would be the end. But the court adjourned the case for one week for further investigation. And Parveen’s lawyer thinks the mood is different now: the Pakistani press picked up on my column, and the attention will make judges more careful about handling her,” writes Nicholas D Kristof, who also wrote about Parveen in his Sunday column.
Parveen was kidnapped at the age of 14 and imprisoned in a brothel in Khanpur for six years. She escaped in January and married the man who helped her flee, but a court charged her with adultery and could hand her back to the brothel owner — even though she is adamant that he will then torture and kill her.
“The publicity may save her life, but it won’t make much difference for thousands of other Aisha Parveens around the world,” writes Kristof. “Asma Jahangir, the chairwoman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said she sees cases like Parveen’s all the time. ‘There is no such thing called justice in Pakistan,’ said Jahangir. ‘It has simply collapsed.’”
“Parveen, now living in hiding after several kidnapping attempts in the last few days, faces a brutal struggle. Her only stroke of luck is having her new husband, Mohamed Akram, who rescued her from the brothel, on her side. The young couple are lovebirds, and each keeps talking about being so lucky to have found the other. But Mr Akram, while unwavering in his love, has disgraced his family by marrying a supposedly fallen woman, and his older sister is suffering.”
“My brother-in-law sent me a message: ‘Unless you divorce her, I will divorce your sister,'” Akram told Kristof. “She has two kids. And he’s also beating her now. He’s very upset because I married a girl who was in a brothel, who is not a virgin.” The couple cannot seek refuge with Parveen’s parents, because Pashtun parents routinely protect their family honour by killing daughters accused of zina.
“I cannot go back there because if I do, they’ll kill me,” Parveen said. “In their eyes I’m dishonoured, because even if a girl is kidnapped, then in their eyes she still should be killed.”
“God should not give daughters to poor people,” she said in despair. “And if a daughter is born, God should grant her death.”
Such barbarity, but amongst it, some light. Mr. Akram displays Allah's mercy much better than many of his co-religionists. But what is worse is the reaction of Western governments and intelligentia to this crap. Any student of the world knows that there will be cultures that lag behind the 'ideal'. I don't agree with the savagery exhibited by Muslims, but can accept that it is there. What is crazy is how so many Westerners cannot see the moral differences between the Muslim world and the West. Many of the concepts the West holds dear are anathamtic in the Muslim world and yet many Westerners refuse to defend their ideas and traditions. Western governments kowtow to brittle Muslim sensibilities (1001 Inventions) while ignoring the very real moral flaws (e.g. honor killings, forced conversions, no womens' rights).
Western governments and the Western elite need to stand up and expose these horror shows. Western governments should not call Islam a 'religion of peace' when people like Aisha know no peace. And decent Muslims must distance themselves from this barbarity. Islam needs a Reformation.
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