Marginal Women: Desolated condition of women of Pakistan in context of CII expansion

A bill seeking to increase the number of women on the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) failed to garner sufficient support in the Senate Standing Committee on Law and Justice.

A unanimous resolution was passed by the Senate of Pakistan on November 21, 2016.  The bill had been presented on the floor of the house on August 21, 2017, calling for amendments to Article 228 of the Constitution to raise the number of women on the council from one to comprising a third of the minimum eight and maximum 20 members. The bill stated that with regards to the conditions of composition of the Council, Article 228(3)(b) which states that "not less than two of the members are persons each of whom is, or has been a Judge of the Supreme Court of a High Court". Article 228(3)(d) lays down that "at least one member is a woman". It also called for a new clause to be inserted "for the purpose of quorum for meetings, at least one third of women members shall be present".

Council of Islamic Ideology is a constitutional body of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, responsible for giving legal advice on Islamic issues to the government and the Parliament. The body was founded in 1962 under the government of Ayub Khan. Currently in CII there are 20 members.

Apart from seeking to increase the number of women on the council, the bill also called for inserting a new clause which states that “for the purpose of the quorum for meetings, at least one-third of women members shall be present”. However, the amendments could not find sufficient support of the committee.

A woman senator explained the need for more women on the council, that the as there is a dire need for consulting women, especially on matters relating to women. She pointed towards examples from Islamic history where women were consulted on religious affairs all the way from the time of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

What the CII actually is?

The constitution says CII members should be "well-qualified". It specifies that the council should have at least two retired judges, four members with a minimum of of 15 years of experience in Islamic research and teaching, and that members should have an "understanding of the economic, political, legal or administrative problems of Pakistan".

In practice though, this definition has been stretched to include men from religious pressure groups whose careers have been limited to administering or teaching in religious seminaries where contemporary knowledge is looked down upon.

On wife-beating bill!!!

The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), a body that advises the Pakistan government proposed a wife-beating bill in 2016. CII’s proposed ‘model’ women’s protection bill, the CII chairman Maulana Sherani suggested that a husband is allowed to ‘lightly’ beat his wife ‘if needed’. The ‘model’ propositions further said ‘women will not be permitted to receive foreign officials and state guests’. Other absurd suggestions included a ‘ban on co-education past the primary level’, ‘ban on women working in ‘vulgar’ advertisements’, barring female nurses from attending to male patients, making it compulsory for mothers to breastfeed for two years and ‘ban on advertisements baby formula/substitutes for breast milk’.

The most anti-women clauses of the proposed bill, other than the ‘light beating’, were that ‘a woman cannot use contraception without the husband’s permission’ and that ‘an abortion after 120 days will be classified as murder’.

The CII proposals were a response to a women's protection law passed by the Punjab government in March. That law wanted to make it easier for female victims of domestic violence to report abuse, and introduced procedures to keep the perpetrator away from the victim until the dispute was resolved. The CII was opposed to the law, and declared it un-Islamic.

Some controversial rulings by CII

Pakistan Senator Farhatullah Babar says the group suggested, back in 1978, that the Pakistan flag carry the words "Allahu Akbar" (God is great). But nobody bothered to implement the ruling.

In 1983, the CII ruled that political parties were contrary to the spirit of Islam, and that a presidential system was more Islamic than a parliamentary one.

In 1991, they declared monetary interest un-Islamic and suggested that it be replaced with a system of profit-sharing between banks and their depositors, by investing in businesses that are not run on interest-based loans.

In the mid-1970s, Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's government was forced to comply with the CII's ruling to ban alcohol after religious groups resorted to street violence in support of the decree.

In January 2016, a parliamentary committee dropped proposed legislation to increase the country's minimum marriageable age from 16 to 18, after the CII declared the move un-Islamic. The council has also been campaigning to lower the marriageable age to 12 and nine for males and females respectively, "provided there are visible signs of puberty". But successive governments have largely ignored that advice, so the minimum marriageable age in Pakistan has stayed at 16.