A campaign against the pernicious idea of honour and women being correlated is the need of the hour
KARACHI: No matter how many times the country collectively raises its voice against ‘honour’ killings or how many laws are put in place to punish the culprit ‘honour’ killing will still keep taking lives.
The latest victim was an eight-month pregnant woman from Khairpur district of Sindh. She was allegedly shot dead by her brother for marrying of her own free will. Pakistan can keep screaming and crying for the women they lose owing to ‘honour’ killing but no substantial outcome would come out of it unless and until a discourse on ‘honour’ not being attached to a woman is widely held.
A majority of the population of the country believes that women are the honour of their families. The idea of women having the ability and capability to make their own decisions and exercise their own agency is still considered to be a taboo. Hence, the patriarchs of the family — father, brother and husband — feel disrespected if the women in their family show the will to make it on their own or chose for themselves. If they can’t contain her, they choose to silence her — even if it means killing their unborn child such as in the Khairpur case.
To effectively change this mindset, a campaign against the pernicious idea of honour and women being correlated is the need of the hour.
Ramsha Jhangir
Published in The Express Tribune, April 8th, 2018.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
