50000 Indian Muslim women rise up against triple talaq
FollowIn an effort to ban the practice of triple talaq, the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) started a campaign that has collected over 50,000 signatures so far in support of the ban.
BMMA, an autonomous group led by Indian Muslim women fighting for their rights in the country, also approached the National Commission for Women (NCW) to put an end to this illegal practice.
“A national signature campaign is underway in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, MP, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Kerala, UP etc. So far, over 50,000 signatures have been collected where women and men have endorsed the abolition of triple talaq. Many more signatures would be collected in the coming days,” the BMMA convenor Noorjehan Safia Niaz told the Indian Express.
In a letter to NCW chief Dr Lalitha Kumaramangalam, the group stated that “Muslim women are entitled to their Constitutional rights and any practice or law that is violative of the Constitutional principles of justice and equality must be abolished. Just as with other communities Muslim women want to reform the personal law in practice currently and bring it on par with Constitutional and Quranic principles of gender justice.”
Along with this campaign the group had also come up with a study titled, "No more 'Talaq Talaq Talaq' - Muslim Women Call for a Ban on an UnIslamic Practice" according to the which, 92.1% of Muslim women want this illegal practice of verbal triple talaq to stop. Also, 59% of them admitted that they had been divorced unilaterally after their husbands said the word 'talaq' thrice.
The report further stated that “one simple method as suggested by a prominent scholar of Indian origin could be an amendment to the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 1939 to include men as well as women.”
