A general may run Pakistan's government, but in many of this country's remote villages, it is the word of the elders that is law, and government writ often gets shunted aside for tribal justice.

But rights activists now say it is high time that the government does something about extra-legal and extra-judicial fora like the jirga (council) and the panchayat (village local body) which are tradition meetings of elders that settle disputes among tribes.

They say that instead of extracting justice, these have often been abused and misused to degrade women, who have been reduced to ''barter items'' in exchange for the freedom of their erring male relatives.

Even I A Rehman, director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), told IPS that the state must realise allowing total freedom to 'jirgas' and similar bodies is helping consolidate a parallel system of justice.

If, he said, Islamabad is incapable of abolishing the jirga system, it must at least take steps to ensure that their powers are restricted so that their decisions do not abuse human rights and cause indescribable anguish to people and embarrassment to state institutions.

As it is, say many observers, Islamabad seems to be interested in what the jirgas are doing only after a media story sparks a public outcry against a tribal ''decision''.

Plight of eight girls

Indeed, it was only after a newspaper last week published the plight of eight girls who were to be married off to elderly men as part of a tribal ''settlement'' that the government moved to stop the deal.

The girls, among them five-year-old Iqra, were supposed to become the brides of men old enough to be their grandfathers in exchange for the lives of their fathers and uncles who had killed two relatives of the men in 1985.

Sardar Khan, Mohammad Akram Khan, Muhammad Ashraf Khan and Asmatullah Khan of Mianwali district in the eastern Punjab province had been found guilty of the murders. The court had sentenced them to die, and theirsubsequent appeals for mercy had been rejected by the president.

The four men should have been hanged last July 27, had their families not been able to strike an agreement with their victims' clan.

According to the compromise reached during a jirga , the victims' family pardoned the four murderers in exchange for eight million rupees (US$1.3 million) and two girl relatives of each convict to be married off to family members of the deceased.

Two of the girls — Tasleem, 14, and Waziraan, 16 — had already been married to 55-year-old Mehr Khan and 80-year-old Ata Muhammad respectively when the government stepped in and forced the two elderly grooms to divorce them.

Strange sense of freedom

A jubilant Tasleem told the media afterwards that she made the sacrifice for her father, but said she felt ''a strange sense of freedom and happiness when I was informed that I was no more Mehr Khan's wife''.

Waziraan was just a little girl when she last met her father, who is among the convicted men. She said that it was her love for her parents that made her feel ''satisfied'' to marry an 80-year-old man ''whose grandchildren were of my age''.

The government's intervention has not really destroyed the whole arrangement, though. The deal is still considered in effect, albeit without the girls.

But while the girls have been more than pleased with how things have ended, many in their community are upset. Zafarullah, for instance, criticised the government for excluding the girls from the deal.

People of this area, he said, do not mind exchanging their girls in such deals. ''It is a custom here,'' said Zafarullah. ''What matters for us is the money.''

He also said he fears the release of the convicts might not end rivalry between the two tribes because a huge sum of money was involved.

With such prevailing attitudes, many observers believe that the situation would not change until the root causes of gender equality are address, including by empowering women to take greater part in economic and social activity.

Blood money

They note that Pakistan's Oisas and Diyat law, which acknowledges the custom of vani or agreements being struck in a meeting of elders, does not allow the handing over of women or girls as part of any deal.

Enacted in 1990, the law provides only for the pardoning of a convicted murderer by the victim's family in exchange for ''blood money''.

Yet the crucial exclusion of human beings in such agreements has not stopped jirgas from permitting arrangements in which female members of a family are made to ''pay'' for a crime committed by a male relative.

Aside from the general low regard for women, rights activists blame the government's lack of political will to end the misuse of the jirga and similar fora.

The Women Action Forum (WAF) seeks the immediate repeal of ''discriminatory'' laws that ''place women at a risk and lead to barbaric practices to resolve enmities as has been witnessed in Mianwali''.

Sustained campaign

It said, ''The incident, coming soon after the Meerwala gang rape also carried out at the behest of a local jirga , highlights the need for a sustained campaign in the media and educational institutions as well as other fora to create awareness against primitive customs and tribal practices that degrade women making them powerless.''

The Meerwala gang rape occurred in a small village in southern Multan district last month. On the order of a jirga , Mukhtar Mai, a 26-year-old village schoolteacher, was raped by four men in front of a crowd of 500.

Mai had been penalised by the jirga not for any crime of her own but because her 12-year-old brother allegedly had an illicit affair with a 22-year old woman of a higher caste in the village.

It was later revealed, however, that the boy had actually been sodomised by a member of the higher caste clan, and the allegation of illicit relations were concocted to preempt the boy's family lodging a complaint.

Again, it was only after the media reported the incident that the government made a move. Some 14 men have since been arrested and are now awaiting trial in a special trial court, which could hand down a maximumpenalty of death. — IPS