Permission slip

The guise of ‘honour’ given to murders stemming from want of power over another person’s life needs to be obliterated

Man is a powerful and complex creature. He is capable of love, yet he is also capable of hatred, anger and destruction. Without qualms, he can sign a marriage document or sing vows of lifelong companionship to a significant other. However, the next moment, he can be seen causing psychological, physical or emotional harm to the same person he once read vows of love to. The latter case is all too familiar in Pakistan where we have countless women murdered by husbands and other relatives every year to maintain family ‘honour’. The latest death was of a 25-year-old woman from Multan, set alight by her husband and father-in-law on account of leaving home without ‘obtaining permission’.

The inherent backward mindset that holds that a woman has to ask permission before leaving home has resulted in the murders of many Pakistani women in the name of false ‘honour’. These dangerous ideologies have psychopathological roots; when a man submits to his anger and uses family ‘honour’ to murder, he lacks a conscience and his action is beyond reprieve. Until such men and their accomplices are shown the inside of a prison cell, these stories will continue to be a part of our shameful cultural history. In this light, it is a welcome step that the criminal in this case has been charged with terrorism so as to expedite the process, but it does highlight the shortcomings of a tedious legal system whereby a simple murder case, though blaring with evidence, is dragged on unnecessarily. If the police work diligently to put all men indicted in similar cases in jail, making effective and honest use of evidence, the number of ‘honour’ killings should decrease. When these men do not have the fear of morality in them and continue committing murders in the name of ‘honour’, the fear of the law and immediate reprimanding need to be implemented. The guise of ‘honour’ given to murders stemming simply from want of control and power over another person’s life needs to be obliterated.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 23^rd,  2015.

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