Killing for ‘hounour’

Every year many persons, mostly women, are killed in different parts of Pakistan in the name of protecting family ‘honour’. Things have been deteriorating over the years, and now the country accounts for one-fifth of ‘honour killings’ in the world. Women are mostly killed for ‘putting in danger family honour’ under various pretexts like displaying inappropriate social behaviour and wearing unsuitable clothes. The killing of women in the name of ‘honour’ has increased so much that a ruling party MPA of Punjab, Syeda Zehra Naqvi, has admitted that ‘honour killing’ of women in the province has registered an alarming surge and this warrants introducing laws that can act as a deterrent against this horrid practice.

So far this year, 81 women have been killied in the name of ‘honour’ in Punjab: Gujranwala district occupying the top position with 17 women having lost their lives, Faisalabad district comes the next with 12 incidents, and Multan being a close third with 11 such cases. The plight of women in this regard in other provinces is no better either. The PTI MPA told the provincial assembly that 178 suspects had been named for killing women in the name of ‘honour’ in the province this year. Of the 178 suspects, 62 had not been arrested, and the police were clueless about them. The ‘freedom’ enjoyed by women’s killers and by those who aid and abet these killings is emboldening the practitioners of the terrible crime. The unstoppable rise in ‘killing for honour’ exposes the inadequacy of the existing laws in dealing with the crime that derives satisfaction from protecting ‘family hounour’ by killing weak women.

When the female legislator said there were different laws for protecting women, she admitted obliquely the flaws in the present laws in bringing the dreadful practice to an end. She said in order to remove the lacunas the Punjab government would soon be introducing laws that would be particularly aimed at curbing women’s killing for ‘honour.’

Published in The Express Tribune, July 16^th, 2021.

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