After triple talaq ban, Muslim women in Telangana face abandonment

HYDERABAD: The Union ministry of minority affairs recently announced that August 1 would be celebrated as the Muslim Women’s Rights Day to mark the passing of the law banning instant triple talaq. But the hype and euphoria may hide a darker truth.
The passing of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights of Marriage) Act two years ago has made life even more difficult for women in troubled marriages. Their husbands are simply abandoning them without asking for talaq. In the process, the women are neither able to ask for maintenance nor remarry.

Meet Zakira,* whose marital bliss lasted exactly 18 days. Booked for murder, her husband was sent to jail the next morning and the young bride promptly shipped back to her parents’ home in Hyderabad’s Shaheen Nagar.
Since then, Zakira -- now with a toddler in tow -- has been awaiting a ‘reunion’. The man, though, has taken a new wife since he was granted bail. For the record, the bail money was raised by Zakira’s family.
“We paid Rs 25 lakh for his bail, yet he abandoned me,” the 25-year-old said, the pain of dejection evident through her niqab. “He has bluntly refused to give me a divorce or pay maintenance. In fact, he has threatened to take my son away if I insist on a divorce,” added Zakira, looking for solace in the women around her, sitting crammed inside the Shaheen Women's Resource and Welfare Association, in Sultan Shahi. Each of them has a similar story to narrate.
Sultana* was first married off at the age of 14. One child and a forced khula later, her parents found her a second groom.Now Sultana has two children and no husband. “My second husband decided to just walk out one day because he was in love with someone else. I don't even know how to track him down,” she said, confessing how the guilt of living off her parents gets unbearable.
“Now, when we try to counsel the men, they tell us to our faces that they will not file for a divorce at any cost, in order to avoid all legalities,” said Jameela Nishat, founder of Shaheen. About 70% of cases that come to her are of women who’ve been abandoned – at times by nationals of other countries – and left to struggle financially.
“Though there is a provision to seek allowance from the Waqf Board, the process is long-drawn -- it involves getting an order from the family court that can take up to a year or even more -- and often ends with the women getting nothing,” said Nishat.
Mohammad Saleem, chairman of the Telangana State Waqf Board, however, maintains that aid is being extended wherever possible. “We are disbursing Rs 5 lakh to Rs 6 lakh every month. So far, 360 such women who have got court orders, have been supported. Depending on the order we pay Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 per month,” he said though admitting to abandonment being the new phenomenon in Muslim society.
Islamic scholar, Moulana Abdul Kareem, said that many cases of abandonment are referred to local mosque committees. “In some instances, we succeed in convincing the man to take the woman back. We also dissuade men against divorce,” he said.
(*Names of some of the respondents have been changed to protect their identities)
30% cases end up with women being deserted:
Though there isn’t any official data , religious leaders and officials say that at least 30% of cases that would have ended in divorce earlier, now end up with women being deserted. Hafez Peer Khaleeq Ahmed Saber, general secretary of Jamiat Ulema, Telangana and AP, feels more cases of abandonment are being reported after passage of the legislation. He contests Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi’s claim that the lot of Muslim women has improved, arguing that in absence of data the remarks make no sense.
Abandonment only route to avoid jail:
In the years after the instant triple talaq was banned, abandonment has become the only route for many men to avoid jail term, say social activists. “It is mostly young women with two and more children who are being abandoned. These women are extremely vulnerable and do not have the means to seek legal recourse as they struggle for day-to-day existence,” said Mujtaba Hasan Askari of Helping Hand Foundation that works with many such women.