The Heinous Practice of Vani in Pakistan

Ami­na Mush­taq

‘Vani’ is a cul­tur­al cus­tom found in parts of Pak­istan where­in young girls are com­pul­so­ri­ly mar­ried as part of pun­ish­ment for a crime com­mit­ted by her male rel­a­tives. It is a form of pre­arranged child mar­riage in which the result­ing pun­ish­ment is decid­ed by a coun­cil of trib­al elders named jir­ga. It is derived from Pash­to word ‘vanay’ which means blood. Vani is also known as ‘Sak’, ‘Swara’ and ‘Sangchat­ti’ in dif­fer­ent region­al lan­guages of Pak­istan. Vani can be avoid­ed if the kin of the girl agrees to pay mon­ey, called Deet.

This cus­tom is said to have been start­ed almost 400 years ago when two Pash­tun tribes in north west­ern Pak­istan fought a bloody war against each oth­er. Dur­ing this bloody peri­od around 800 peo­ple were mur­dered. The local chief tried to resolve this ten­sion by call­ing the ‘Jir­ga’ who decid­ed that girls are to be giv­en as ‘Qisas’, as pun­ish­ment. They con­sid­ered it the only way to resolve this dis­pute and both fam­i­lies turned into a ‘Birad’. Lat­er on this deci­sion became a cus­tom which was passed on from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion. Since then, trib­al and rur­al jir­gas have been using young vir­gin girls aged 4 to 14 to set­tle crimes such as mur­der by men. This blood for blood tra­di­tion can be found in dif­fer­ent provinces of Pak­istan such as KPK, Pun­jab, Sindh, Balochis­tan as well as in the trib­al areas. The prac­tice has no legal or reli­gious basis and con­sti­tutes an ancient tra­di­tion that is exten­sive­ly cus­tom­ary in trib­al and rur­al areas.

A ter­ri­ble inci­dent flashed on nation­al and inter­na­tion­al media a few years back when eight inno­cent girls were mar­ried as ‘Vani’ in Mian­wali; one of them was just one and a half year old. Var­i­ous human rights orga­ni­za­tions are work­ing to erad­i­cate this inhu­man and stu­pid cus­tom which is cre­at­ing seri­ous dis­or­der in the soci­ety and destroy­ing women’s lives. Pak­istan has already been fac­ing severe rep­ri­mand for human rights vio­la­tions and the inci­dents of vani bring huge shame to Pak­istan.

In 2011, a 12 year old girl was hand­ed over as wife to an 85 year old man under ‘Vani’ for a crime alleged to have been com­mit­ted by the girl’s father. In Mala­han­wala, Hafiz­abad, a 10 year old girl was forcibly mar­ried to a 50 year old man under the vani cus­tom to com­pen­sate for her father’s sec­ond mar­riage in the dis­trict. In 2012, 13 girls rang­ing from age 4 to 16 years were forced into mar­riage to resolve a dis­pute over a con­tention of mur­der between two clans. The case was tried by elders from the two groups with a mem­ber of Balochis­tan state assem­bly, Mir Tariq Masoori Bugti, who was lead­ing the jir­ga. The jirga’s ver­dict was based on ‘Vani’ enact­ing an order that the 13 girls must be hand­ed over as wives to mem­bers of one of the clans, for a crime com­mit­ted by a man of the oth­er clan, who could not even be found for the tri­al. The sen­tence was car­ried out, and the politi­cian Mr. Bugti for­ti­fied the prac­tice of ‘Vani’ as a valid means to rec­on­cile dis­putes.

The nation­al ‘Judi­cial Pol­i­cy Mak­ing Com­mit­tee’ called upon a pan­el of judges and decid­ed to take imme­di­ate and strict action against this inhu­man cus­tom. But ‘Vani’ cas­es are still fre­quent­ly occur­ring in the area. Accord­ing to the com­mit­tee two sis­ters were giv­en to mar­riage under ‘Vani’ in Tola­man­gi Kal­abagh, where Jahangir Khan raped a girl called Naseem Bibi who got preg­nant. It was decid­ed that the vic­tim girl got mar­ried to Jahangir Khan, while his two sis­ters (8 and 17 years old) were giv­en to Naseem Bibi’s broth­ers with addi­tion­al 60 thou­sands rupees as fine. Both girls were hand­ed over accord­ing to the deci­sion against their will.

When com­pro­mise is sought between two bel­liger­ent tribes this tra­di­tion is fol­lowed in order to avoid fur­ther blood­shed. Usu­al­ly ‘Vani’ is applied in the cas­es of mur­der and kid­nap­ping of wom­en­folk. When a jir­ga is called upon to resolve a case of mur­der or kid­nap­ping of a girl, the jir­ga indicts the offend­er and announces pun­ish­ment. In a mur­der case, pun­ish­ments are either revenge i.e. blood for blood or blood mon­ey or ‘Vani’. In the lat­ter case, the near­est vir­gin daugh­ter, sis­ter, etc. of the offend­er is giv­en over to the aggriev­ed fam­i­ly. When decid­ing the con­di­tions of ‘Vani’ a num­ber of fac­tors are tak­en into account, includ­ing the num­ber of mur­ders and the length of the dis­pute between the two fam­i­lies, as well as the pow­er bal­ance between them. Since it is a forced mar­riage between the ene­mies, there is no wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny. The girl is made to ride a don­key or horse and a third par­ty leads that ani­mal to the oth­er side.

The receiv­ing fam­i­ly takes over the girl as a pun­ish­ment to the ene­my. How­ev­er, the main suf­fer­er in such a case is cer­tain­ly the girl. In trib­al soci­ety, the woman is often placed in a dis­crim­i­nat­ed posi­tion, con­sid­ered as prop­er­ty of man. Mar­riage is nor­mal­ly arranged for a price for the bride called ‘Wal­war’. There­fore, in case of ‘Vani’, the affect­ed fam­i­ly los­es a promis­ing amount of mon­ey, which makes it being con­sid­ered a severe pun­ish­ment.

Women in our soci­ety have attained a respectable place alto­geth­er with greater aware­ness of their posi­tion and poten­tial­i­ties. They are no more treat­ed as equiv­a­lent to cat­tle or as a com­mod­i­ty to be bar­gained. Against the back­ground of this mod­ern out­look, all those stick­ing to the irra­tional old cul­tures and tra­di­tions will find them­selves at a loss while com­pet­ing with the mod­ern world. The mod­ern man will always look askance at those who sac­ri­fice their women under the garb of ‘Vani’ to save men from the vengeance of the ene­my.

Giv­ing women as ‘Vani’ to the ene­my for mar­riage pur­pos­es so that the ene­my may for­give the mur­der of its dear one is also against the teach­ings of Islam. Islam cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly for­bids all mar­riages made under any kind of com­pul­sion. The Holy Prophet (PBUH) has at many occa­sions dis­solved such mar­riages. These mar­riages were known as ‘Sabaya’ in the days of ‘Jahiliya’ (igno­rance). To sum up, today the cus­tom of ‘Vani’ is doing no good but cast­ing asper­sions on the noble and dig­ni­fied her­itage of the Pash­tun cul­ture, which denotes courage, hon­our, hos­pi­tal­i­ty and peace­ful coex­is­tence.
‘Vani’ also con­tra­dicts inter­na­tion­al human rights stan­dards.
Arti­cle 1 of the Uni­ver­sal Dec­la­ra­tion of Human Rights (UDHR): “All human beings are born free and equal in dig­ni­ty and rights. They are endowed with rea­son and con­science and should act towards one anoth­er in a spir­it of broth­er­hood”.

Obvi­ous­ly, the prac­tice of ‘Vani’ is in direct con­flict with Arti­cle 1 of the UDHR, which regards all human being free by birth and equal in dig­ni­ty and rights. It dis­re­gards an individual’s free­dom as under ‘Vani’ girls are giv­en over to the rival par­ty with­out seek­ing their con­sent.
Arti­cle 16 of the Uni­ver­sal Dec­la­ra­tion of Human Rights: “Men and women of full age with­out any lim­i­ta­tion due to race, nation­al­i­ty or reli­gion, have the right to mar­ry and to form a fam­i­ly. They are enti­tled to equal rights as to mar­riage, dur­ing mar­riage and at its dis­so­lu­tion.
Mar­riage shall be entered into only with the free and full con­sent of the intend­ing spous­es.”

Arti­cle 16 of UDHR grants the right of mar­ry­ing by one’s own choice with­out any dis­crim­i­na­tion based on race, nation­al­i­ty or reli­gion. Under ‘Vani’ how­ev­er, nei­ther the man’s nor the women’s con­sent is asked for the pur­pose of mar­riage. In this sense, both of them are vic­tims. More ago­niz­ing is the fact that these ill-fat­ed indi­vid­u­als can­not dis­solve their mar­riage in any case, whether they are liv­ing togeth­er or not.

Despite ris­ing aware­ness through media about the issue of ‘Vani and sim­i­lar tra­di­tion­al prac­tices, injus­tices con­tin­ue. It appears that women are still main­ly seen as prop­er­ty and mere objects that can be used to set­tle feuds between men. Evi­dent­ly, the laws alone have been insuf­fi­cient to elim­i­nate this cus­tom from Pak­istani soci­ety. Fur­ther­more, politi­cians and admin­is­tra­tors need to be edu­cat­ed about the dam­age caused by such acts since their involve­ment in jir­gas legit­imis­es the acts in the eyes of the peo­ple. Instead of pre­sid­ing over such extra judi­cial forums that deliv­er unlaw­ful ver­dicts and seal the fate of young girls, law­mak­ers should be work­ing to erad­i­cate such prac­tices in their respec­tive con­stituen­cies.