Career
Kashmala graduated from the Lahore School of Economics in 1998 with a major in International Trade Laws (Banking and Finance). She was a member of Pakistan peoples party and elected into parliament in 2001. She is also involved in women's rights and much of her work in politics have centered around this issue. She introduced two bills regarding women in parliament, on honour killings and amendments to the Hudood Ordinance respectively. She is among the critics of the Hudood Ordinance and questions its legitimacy in Islamic theology as claimed by the proponents. She identifies laws on gender discrimination, sexual harassment scandal and domestic violence among her priority issues and criticizes the feudal mindset along with a male-dominated culture as hindering progress and laws in these areas. In March 2005, when Tariq's sponsored bill on Karo-kari (honour killing) was rejected by voice vote in the National Assembly, she criticized the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) calling its leaders ‘self-styled’ experts on Islam saying they were exploiting Islam and the constitution and that they used Quranic verses to suit their points of view. Tariq had suggested 3 amendments related to the issue of Wali (legal male guardian), compoundability and the remission of sentence but the opposition, i.e. MMA and Law Minister Wasi Zafar opposed the bill calling it "un-islamic". In August 2006 as a member of the NA Select Committee on Women’s Protection Bill, Tariq proposed that a husband, who had sex with his wife without her consent should be tried under rape charges. Due to outspoken manner against corruption and nepotism, her party sought to have her expelled from the party. She maintains that the driving forces behind her opponents are an anti-woman mindset and corruption in politics.
On September 24, 2007, she was elected to chair the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians from 2007 to 2010.
In July 2011, Tariq was a candidate for the Chairperson of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. She lost the first round of the election to Ms Fiamé Mata’afa, the Samoan Minister of Justice and Sir Alan Haselhurst, MP from the United Kingdom. Sir Alan was eventually elected as the chairperson in the runoff.
However She opposed a bill on reproductive health in June 2012 stating that it was not in conformity of Islamic laws and was too controversial.
She is an alumna of the London School of Economics.
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