Tribal Justice

Crude, unequal justice.  Based on cultural heritage.  Without equality between the genders and respect for human dignity and life, that is the kind of justice that is meted out in tribal communities living in isolated geographical fastness, relying on tradition and the presumed wisdom of the elderly who sit in tribal jirgas, weighing details of presumed outrages to societal norms, issuing edicts.


In Pakistan there are conventional courts to settle differences between people to arrive at legally binding solutions.  Those accustomed to the rough and ready solutions forthcoming through traditional jirgas often prefer to approach village elders for their consideration of urgent matters to receive advice which they then carry through on.  Particularly in matters of presumed female infidelity.



Basically, it is the assumption of personal vengeance carried through to restore 'honour', given the blessing of tradition.  And 'honour' all too often revolves around ownership and sole use of females upon whom no other males may look, none others may touch, none others may presume to speak with, or linger about.  For men do not trust one another with their females.


And women are possessions without free will who must heed the instructions of fathers, brothers, uncles, husbands.  Village Elders near Haripur, Pakistan were petitioned by a man who demanded justice.  Suleman Khan believed his wife had illicit sexual relations with another man.  He wanted revenge.  After deliberating for an hour, the elders announced that he was free to punish the offender and his family.


Immediately, this dishonoured husband and his three brothers entered the man's house where only his 45-year-old mother and her teen son were home.  The four men, armed with rifles and canes, dragged Shehnaz Bibi from her home, to the village square.  Villagers witnessed the woman being stripped and dragged by the ankles in the dirt.  After an hour of this torture, the woman was left alone.


"All the time, I was thinking 'I just want to die right now", she later said, wiping tears from her face.  "I thought to myself, 'I just can't bear this anymore'." But she did.  The same village jirgas settle disputes through a tradition where a family is ordered to agree to give one of its daughters in marriage to a male in the 'plaintiff' family, even if the girl is a month-old child.


Supreme Court chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Caudhry, who has ordered a clamp-down on such village jirgas by provincial police officers has stated: "It seems we are living in the Stone Age."  And this is most certainly true.  And what's more, people originally from Pakistan sometimes bring their Stone Age sensibilities with them when they migrate outside Pakistan to take residency in other countries more socially developed.


Where the dreadful outrage of "honour killings" make headlines.  One is too many.