Why do women choose fake cases for fixing a bad marriage?

Tasmiah Nuhiya Ahmed।। In our societies, it is through marriage, two different individuals share together the joys of starting a family, of tears, happiness and fights too.  Yet, when the basis of marriage- companionship and happiness- is threatened, I wonder why the option of divorce is scorned upon.

According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the number of applications for divorce has increased by 34% in the past seven years. With the increasing number of divorce applications in our society, the number of fake cases filed by women against their partners under the Prevention of Women and Child Repression Act 2000 is also rising.

In recent days, being a lawyer, I’m getting calls from a considerable number of male clients who are asking for advice on what precautions they need to take when they want to initiate a divorce proceeding, which is his legal right.

Everyone has the legal right to initiate a divorce. However, what they said is that their wives are threatening them that if they file divorce then they have to go through legal actions and stay in police custody for a certain period.

These phone calls made me think again if our women are empowered in real sense as they are choosing to blackmail their partners with the threat of filing fake cases if divorce proceeding is initiated.

The Prevention of Women and Children Repression Act 2000 is a specialized law that passed into law and came into force on 17 July 1995, which mainly deals with the violence’s against women and children. Now this law which was enacted for ensuring protection of women is being misused by women in many cases. This strict law is being used as a weapon to harass and punish partners in a marriage, mostly by women in our societies. In most of the cases, it is the husband’s side which is frequently being harassed by the false case filed against him upon a trifle physical assault allegation which is mostly found false.

The Supreme Court of India in a case namely Sushil Kumar Sharma vs. UOI2 (2005) observed that it has become necessary for the Legislature to find out ways how the makers of frivolous complaints or allegations can be appropriately dealt with. They have used the term “legal terrorism” for the misuse of legal provisions by some people for achieving their goal and implementing their ill motive.

Unfortunately, in Bangladesh we do not have any standard statistics on the number of fake cases being filed. However, back in the year 2013, Barrister Shafique Ahmed, a former law minister; once said that 80% of dowry related cases of that time are false.

The law has remedy for a victim of a false case under Penal Code 1860, Code of Criminal Procedure 1898 and also under the Prevention of Women and Children Repression Act 2000. What makes me concerned is that why women are choosing to file fake cases when a husband is initiating a divorce proceeding.  The answer might be that we are just educating girls but not emphasizing on developing self confidence in them. If we are teaching our girls that they are dependent on their partners, their rights and securities are to be ensured by their spouses, then this sort of evil culture would continue.

It’s time we educate our girls in proper manner so that they get out of this evil culture of using law as weapon. An empowered woman can never choose to get involved in this legal terrorism for fixing a marriage through initiating a false case against the partner who has decided to not continue the marriage.

Tasmiah Nuhiya Ahmed: an Advocate of Bangladesh Supreme Court