Acknowledging that decades of delay in passing Pakistan's Hindu Marriage Bill have been "truly embarrassing", a leading daily today said the parliament has "only done what it should have done decades ago".
"There is good news for Pakistan's Hindus," begins an editorial titled 'Hindu marriage law' in The News International, referring to a parliamentary panel unanimously approving the Hindu Marriage Bill on Monday.
"Seven decades after the creation of Pakistan, its parliament has worked out a mechanism to register marriages between Hindus in the country.
"While the law is good news, we must remember that parliament only done what it should have done decades ago," it said about the bill that will now be tabled in the National Assembly.
The bill is expected to be cleared with the backing of the PML-N government, and the Hindu minority community in Pakistan may soon have a marriage law after decades of delay and inaction. Resolutions in favour of such a bill had been passed by the Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa assemblies.
"A longstanding demand of Pakistan's Hindu community, the bill is aimed at regulating marriages and their termination among Hindu families," the article said.
After the bill is approved by parliament, a mechanism will need to be worked out to register Hindu marriages.
"The decades of delay in passing the bill have been truly embarrassing. This has meant that Hindu couples have had to resolve their disputes outside the ambit of Pakistan's legal system and there has been no formal recourse available to them. Whether registration will offer any new protections is uncertain as the law provides no new protections against the issue of forced conversions and marriages.
"However, the law has been pitched as a potential protection against forced marriages as proof of marriage will be available in case an already married Hindu woman is abducted. Controversially, however, the approved draft of the bill has a clause declaring a marriage between two Hindus to be nullified if either of them converts to Islam, which arguably negates the earlier protection," it said.
