New Delhi, Feb 07: The National Commission for Women (NCW) today called upon the Muslim community to review existing personal laws relating to talaq, maintenance and polygamy etc to ameliorate the socio-economic condition of their women.

Pointing out that so many Muslim countries like Turkey, Indonesia, Iran and Pakistan had amended laws relating to these subjects to meet the demand of the changing times, NCW chairperson Poornima Advani said that in India also, these laws demanded a new interpretation.
''But the initiative in this regard should come from the community itself,'' Advani said, adding that leaders, scholars and social activists should deliberate on the subject intensively and comprehensively and come forward with recommendations which the NCW would do its best to get implemented by the government. She was speaking as the chief guest at a two-day workshop on the socio-economic status of Muslim women organised by the Jamia Millia University here.
Advani, who has taught Muslim personal law at the Bombay University, said there were so many laws which were intended to be good and arose according to the demands of the day when they were formulated, but later they came to be misinterpreted to do injustice to women. In this connection she cited a sub-clause in the dissolution of Muslim Marriage Act, 1939 under which a woman can seek divorce only if her husband does not treat her equally with his other wife. But, she pointed out that there is no such man as can ensure this equality and the provision continues to be misused. She said the NCW during the hundreds of public hearings it held over the year has found that the problem of instantaneous talaq and multiple marriage were the ones affecting Muslim women most adversely. A review of the laws relating to these issues was the need of the hour for the uplift of this neglected class. The NCW chairperson said that spread of education among women would go a long way to enable them to fight for their rights given to them by the Qur'an and the Indian Constitution. Earlier, echoing her views, NCW member Baby Rani Maurya said the lot of six crore Muslim women in the country cannot be improved without their educational and economic empowerment. A number of other speakers on the occasion stressed the need of launching an intensive campaign to make Muslim women, specially those living in small towns and villages, aware of their legal rights relating to their share in property which in most of the cases they surrender to their brothers out of social pressure. Bureau Report