The Hindu : Shabana Azmi for gender-just civil code

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 22, 2003

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National

Shabana Azmi for gender-just civil code

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI AUG. 21. Film star and social activist, Shabana Azmi, today called for a gender-just common civil code culled from just and equitable laws of all religions. ``Polygamy and triple talaq are unjust to women just as the advantages to male members of the Hindu undivided family in property matters is unjust to women. Both will have to be dropped,'' she said during a Special Mention in the Rajya Sabha.

Challenging the notion that minorities resist the common civil code because they are reluctant to integrate with the nation, she said the function of all laws was to promote freedom and ensure justice. National integration can occur when minorities feel secure and have access to jobs, when their life and property is not jeopardised each time a communal riot is engineered and when the guilty are punished and justice is perceived to be done. However, women have waited for 56 years for gender justice guaranteed under the Constitution. This has eluded them because of discriminatory personal laws of all religions. If a uniform code can guarantee them this justice, Ms. Azmi was open to a national debate on the issue but felt this was not possible till a blueprint was available.

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