Triple talaq: Has India’s divorce ruling helped Muslim women?

In 2017, India’s Supreme Court outlawed the Islamic practice of “triple talaq” which allowed female man to separation and divorce his wife within minutes just by stating “talaq” (divorce) 3 times. While the court’s choice was celebrated by women’s rights activists at the time, five yrs on, many Muslim women say that the ruling has left them in a limbo.

Afreen Rehman was elated by the Supreme Courtroom judgement as it produced the unilateral, immediate divorce given by the girl husband a few months earlier legally invalid.

Yet contrary to expectations, items didn’t change a lot for her because her husband declined to take her back.

Five years later on, Ms Rehman, among the five women petitioners in the case, is uncertain if she is still married or a divorcee.

This is also the story of three additional women petitioners in the case. They are still “divorced” as they haven’t been taken back by their husbands yet.

Zakia Soman, co-founder of the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, a rights group that was also one of the petitioners in the case, says that this August 2017 common sense, and the subsequent regulation in 2019 that will criminalised the exercise, has had mixed results for Muslim females.

“Their husbands are usually happily remarried and also have children, whereas these women continue [to live] alone, ” Ms Soman says.

Before the Supreme Court ruling, India was among a handful of countries that allowed triple talaq. The campaign by Muslim women and activists regarding outlawing the exercise was championed simply by India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) authorities, led by Perfect Minister Narendra Modi.

Subsequently, the particular lead petitioner in case, Shayara Bano, has been made the vice-chairperson of a women’s rights group in the north state of Uttarakhand, which is governed with the BJP. Ishrat Jahan, another of the petitioners, has also joined the particular BJP.

However, many of the other petitioners are struggling – Ms Rehman has not been capable of find a stable work in all these yrs and Atiya Sabri has won a partial battle with regard to alimony but will be constrained to stay with her parents.

Nevertheless , observers say that the top court judgment and the law that criminalised the practice appear to have brought about a big change at the social degree.

“This has brought recognition in the community that immediate triple talaq is not really the law of God and our volunteers in different states are reporting that cases are now fewer within numbers, ” states Ms Soman.

But at the same time, cases of men abandoning their wives appear to have increased. According to the law, erring husbands are prone to serve up to 3 years in prison but a lack of awareness is causing many Muslim men to wilderness their wives, with little accountability.

Jameela Nishat, that runs Shaheen Women’s Resource and Welfare Association in the southern part of city of Hyderabad, delivered her volunteers to study matrimonial cases in 20 slums of the city after the law’s introduction.

“They discovered that out of two, 106 households selected, 683 had women who had been deserted by way of a husbands, ” the lady says. “We was used to getting two-three cases associated with desertions earlier, but with the introduction of the law, the particular cases suddenly proceeded to go up, ” Ms Nishat says.

Uzma Naheed, an ex member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, the organisation that compared the ban on instant triple talaq in court, provides observed a similar craze in Mumbai.

“It’s happening because guys want to avoid giving maintenance to ladies, ” Ms Naheed says. “This is extremely painful. The law has not helped. ”

Observers say there has already been a noticeable rise in the number of women seeking “khula” – a kind of divorce initiated by women. Since “khula” is granted within the woman’s request, the person cannot be held responsible designed for seeking an instant separation and divorce.

“We try our best to resolve the matter by organising a dialogue between the parties and most of the cases are usually resolved amicably, inch says Ansar Alam Qasmi, the head priest at Imarat-e-Sharia, a socio-religious organisation which has its presence in the eastern states associated with Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa. “But, yes, reports from our centers suggest that instances of females seeking divorce have got indeed gone up. ”

Though there is no cross-country consolidated data showing break-ups of immediate triple talaq and khula available, The particular Hindu newspaper found that many Darul Qazas – Islamic arbitration centres — have seen a significant increase in the number of women seeking khula in recent months.

This signals a better recognition and a determined pushback from Muslim women, but the practice is also often exploited by men.

Khalida Begum (name converted to protect her privacy) from Telangana state learnt it hard way. She did marry in October 2021 but violence at the hands of her in-laws produced her seek separation and divorce. The husband dropped, and asked her to seek khula rather – which intended she had to do away with claims of alimony.

She agreed yet put forth a condition: this individual must admit on paper that the reason for khula was the violence he and his family had perpetrated on her. Predictably, he refused. As a means out of the stalemate, Khalida’s mother suggested that will she drop the problem, but she refused.

“Why should I take the blame regarding what he has done? He comes out clean but , despite tolerating everything, I appear to be the bad one, ” Khalida told the BBC. The girl struggle continues for now.

Ms Rehman is trying to remarry, but has had simply no luck. “Her case has been highlighted so much that people are now scared of Afreen, ” states Naseem Akhtar, the Jaipur-based women’s rights activist, who helped Ms Rehman take her case to the Supreme Court.

“The day the decision came out, Afreen was on every TELEVISION channel. Her non-Muslim boss fired the girl when he got to know about the case, stating ‘you are such a shrewd woman which you went all the way to the Supreme Court against your husband. What happens if you file a case against us? ‘” says Ms Akhtar.

Her family is usually supportive, but the considered remarrying now scares her, says Microsoft Rehman. “My living has not changed. We are already a bad guy. ”

“But it must change meant for future generations, inch she adds.