Increase in honour killings reflects continuation of primitive attitudes
eleven honour killings made their way into media reports in the first five days of the week. The reports came from regions as diverse as Abbotabad, Nawabshah, Mirpurkhas, Larkana and Peshawar. The story is the usual. Man and woman fall in love with each other, family disapproves and kills one or both claiming that it was a matter of “preserving family honour.” ‘Man kills daughter, paramour,’ ‘Man kills wife’ and ‘Man kills handicapped sister’ are the remorseless headlines that garnish the left out borders of the daily news pages. With 4,000 such honour killings reported between 1998 and 2004, it is as if honour killings no longer matter enough to require detailed investigation before reporting. One in eight of the cases did not even make it to the courts. Four lines are enough in most cases and newspapers are not sensitive enough to use pseudonyms for ‘honour crime’ victims.
If the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) reports are to be taken as a baseline indicator, then at least 943 women were killed in the name of honour in 2011. The HRCP itself warns that actual numbers were higher. Of these, the purported reasons offered were illicit relations in 595 cases and demanding to marry of own choice in 219 cases. Brothers were the murderers in 180 of the cases while husbands committed the murders in 226 cases. Only 20 women of the women attacked were reported to have been provided medical aid before they died.
The fact that such a primitive and barbaric crime continues to be committed as a duty across Pakistan suggests that the culture on the ground is not changing despite the outcry of various human rights organizations. Controlling women, curbing choice appears to be the diktat that society at large continues to wish to favour despite a law against honour killings having been passed in the year 2004, which made honour killings a crime against the State. On the ground, police officials continue to act as mediators between families and apply Diyat and Qisaas provisions to let the criminals off. In the cases that reach the courts, studies reveal courts are prone to using the “grave and sudden provocation” excuse to let the accused off. It is a known fact that the real motive behind many so-called honour crimes are disputes over property or taking revenge for an enmity but that has not changed the fact honour killings are on the rise. On the one side, this is reflective of a greater exercise of choice on the part of the new generation. On the other, it reflects the rise of extremist attitudes within society. Official discourse still only sanctions ‘rightful marriage’ as that arranged by families and the garb of Islam still shrouds the question of women’s rights in the legal statutes and Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Both law and society need a radical reform for honour killings to be curbed. It is hoped that the government is listening.
