Call for Pakistan divorce law change causes stir

By Zeeshan Haider

ISLAMABAD, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Pakistan's top Islamic advisory body has urged the government to amend divorce laws to give more say to women, triggering a controversy with religious hardliners vowing to resist the move.

The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) proposed to the government at the weekend that a divorce should go into effect within three months of a woman's request for it.

Under existing Pakistani laws, men are free to divorce their wives, but a woman can only start divorce proceedings if she first surrenders her right to "mehr", or money plegded to her at the time of wedding as a token of her husband's earnestness.

Existing laws allow a husband to divorce his wife verbally in private but CII recommended it should be done in writing.

A bitter struggle between progressives and conservatives to set Pakistan's direction is one factor in the rise of Islamist militancy afflicting the Muslim nation of 170 million people.

Rights groups called on the government to frame the laws in line with the CII's recommendations.

"These recommendations are no doubt very positive, sensible and logical and the government must implement them forthwith without any fear of bigotry," Iqbal Haider, secretary-general of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, told Reuters.

Religious hardliners, however, branded them unIslamic and at odds with sharia, or Islamic law.