Should laws against child marriage, domestic violence or harassment be cancelled simply because enforcement is difficult? What is stopping us from strengthening them through planned and coordinated actions such as mass education, media sensitisation, rule of law reforms and access to justice? Is weak enforcement a failure of governance or a reason to retreat from justice? Is weak enforcement a reason to abandon justice? Does any pro-women, pro-marginalised community or pro-human rights law need to police affection, or does it need to address coercion?

An array of such questions occupied my mind when I came across the news of the recent rejection by a standing committee of the National Assembly of a bill presented by PPP's MNA Dr Sharmila Farooqui, seeking to ban dowry. This is more than a procedural setback. It signals a multi-layered uneasiness with challenging communal customs, social traditions and cultural rituals that are patriarchal, destructive, unhealthy and economically convenient for many. Declaring the bill "unworkable" may have ended its journey, for now, in a parliamentary committee, but it has also exposed a critical fault line: our reluctance to legislate against everyday forms of gendered coercion disguised as important values.

Dowry is often defended as a voluntary exchange of gifts. This........

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