KASARGOD (KERALA): “I hereby declare that I have pronounced, ‘talaq... talaq... talaq’ to my wife, Shameem Begum (27),” signed off 33-year-old Javed S in an agreement dated April 4, 2017.
It was a day of emancipation for Shameem, a seamstress. (Both names changed)
“For four years, I have been trying and I had to literally fall at his feet to get the talaq,” said Shameem.
Javed agreed to it after she had signed another agreement foregoing all her rights to maintenance and giving up the Rs 1.5 lakh she paid as the ‘mahr’ or dowry to him. “I just wanted to get out of the pit. I didn’t care for the money,” she said.
Hers is but one example of how Muslim men attempt to circumvent the law and deny women their rights.
Born in a poor family and brought up by a single mother, Shameem had to sell 10 cents of her meagre landholding to raise the Rs 1.5 lakh and buy 10 sovereigns (80g) of gold ornaments.
But the marriage lasted hardly a week.
“Javed was addicted to drugs and liquor. He would come home intoxicated and abuse me,” she said.
“The profanities he used to mouth clog my ears, and he beat me for no reason,” said Shameem.
What shocked her the most was when she found out her husband was accused of sodomising a boy. “His family and my uncles were cheating me. They knew all along what kind of a man Javed was. In my society, women have no voice,” she said.
A resident of Nileshwar, Javed worked with an event management group where he helped build tents and shamianas for weddings. But he played truant often. “One day, his co-workers came looking for him and he hid in the bathroom. I did not know he was hiding and told them he was in the bathroom,” said Shameem.“I still shudder when I think of the thrashing I got that night.”
She walked out of the marriage after a week. Her mother and younger sister stood by her. But he used to telephone her and abuse her. She filed two cases against him; one seeking maintenance and the second alleging domestic violence and pestering calls. But he continued to abuse her. She asked for a divorce, “He said he’ll never give me talaq and allow me to remarry.”
When Shameem got a marriage proposal, Javed “became determined not to divorce me. My lawyers had to use the cases against him to bring him to the negotiation table,” she said.
In Kasargod and Kannur, “no intelligent Muslim man will give talaq to his wife”, said senior lawyer C Sukkur, former public prosecutor and officer-bearer of the Kerala Lawyer’s Forum affiliated to the Indian Union Muslim League.
To circumvent the law and deny women their rights, Muslim men refrain from giving talaq, he said. “Men will remarry as polygamy is allowed in Muslim society. But because polyandry is illegal, women get stuck,” he said. For women to get legally divorced, they have to rely on the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act that came into effect in 1939. “It will take years for them to get a divorce from court,” he said.