For Honor or For Prejudice?

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person. Men and women of full age without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry or to have a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage and its dissolution. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the attending spouses. The family is the natural and fundamental group, unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and state. But the right to life of women in Pakistan is conditional on their obeying social norms and traditions.

Pakistan has ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1996, still women continue to be commoditized for land or money, given as swara (compensation for murder/dispute settlement) or watta satta (men acquire a wife by offering a sister or daughter in exchange), women are abused, raped or murdered by close relatives. ‘Honor’ killing was once an unusual custom but has more recently evolved into a common practice in which men kill sisters, daughters, or other female family members to avenge a ‘shame’ or ‘dishonor’ she is accused of bringing upon her family or tribe.

Behaviors considered to be ‘dishonorable’ are many and can include a woman wanting to marry a man of her choice; wishing to seek employment outside the home; publicly disobeying the family patriarch; being accused of having illicit relations or seeking a divorce.

‘Honor’ killings are possible because these inhumane acts are not condemned by society, the law does not punish perpetrators as only 20 % of honor killings are ever brought to justice. Though the government has now passed a law according to which murders committed on the name of ‘honor’ would be considered intentional murder. Yet the law is not sufficient to control this problem because in all cases the murderers are the close relatives of the victim (woman), i.e. father, brother or husband, who also have the privilege to resolve the issue on behalf of the deceased woman. It means when a person, father, brother or husband kills his wife, sister or daughter, they sit together and resolve the case before it goes to the police for investigation or even if it goes the police later on, they withdraw the case. Besides, state institutions deal with these crimes against women with extraordinary leniency and the law provides many loopholes for murderers in the name of honour to kill without punishment.

Media is one of the main sources for bringing the honor killing cases to surface. It is considered to be comparatively more authentic source for honor killing data in Pakistan, as rights groups compile their reports about honor killing on the daily reporting of newspapers and other media news. The present case is one of those which media published and it got nationwide attention including the parliament.

It is imperative that we youngsters take matters into our own hands now and explore arenas to put a stop to this inhumane practice. This is a revolution we need and i write this article to bring this dreadful issue under your notice. I hope that you all too realize how dangerous this phenomena is and how essential it is to step forward and stop it.

 by Anam Nawaz Malik