The Inheritance They Never Received

Why don’t girls and women in Pakistan receive their inheritance? Although the law grants them this right, family pressure often forces them to give it up. In many households, girls are told from an early age that they don’t need their share — so when the time comes, they either refuse to claim it or simply hand it over to a brother or other male relative.

Even though in Islam it is not the family’s choice or favour to give a girl her property share, women become the legal heirs after the death of a family member. She doesn’t need to ask for her share, because it’s her legal right according to Islam—it is the woman’s right. The family can’t say, “It’s our decision whether to give it to you or not”—the law also gives her this right. But there is a problem: giving the right on paper and taking responsibility to check whether she actually received that right are two different things.

Both Supreme Court cases below show this same issue: the law gives inheritance rights to women, but in real life, people don’t follow that right—and the matter ends up in court, where the court intervenes to protect the right of women.

When a Brother Simply Refuses: Abrar Hussain v. Bibi Shahida 

This case involves a brother and sister who, after their father’s death, both had a legal right to his property. The brother, however, refused to give his sister her share and took control of the entire property himself. The case began in 2019 and moved from the Sindh High Court........

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