A survey of practices and methods of denial of inheritance to females in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

Mushtaq Ahmad Jadoon & Rashid Khan

Abstract
Inheritance denial on gender basis is a crime in Pakistan. The present study
explores different illegal methods, practices and procedures that were
adopted to deny family females in getting their legal share in family
inheritance. The data for the study were collected from the respondents
belonging to rural and urban areas of District Peshawar. The results reveal
female inheritance denial through various measures that included illegal as
well was a common practice in the study area. Customary laws generally
applied in inheritance matters which many times override even the statutory
laws and rights given to females by the constitution in Pakistan. Though the
use of illegal methods such as omitting females name from heir’s list,
marking females thump on inheritance documents, getting power of
attorney from the family females and making bogus inheritance documents
was not practiced by the respondents at large but were still practiced by
many people in the study area in one way or other. They along with
patriarchy based norms, practices, inheritance getting procedures and
dysfunctional role of legal institutions made very difficult for females to get
their legal inheritance rights. The study recommended dealing the practices
through strict law enforcement measures, discouraging the parallel
courts/bodies, customary laws and making inheritance legal procedure
simple.

Keywords: illegal inheritance denial methods, inheritance denial a white collar crime, female inheritance share denial, inheritance share on gender basis