Another moment of shame

Parliament was told in February that 933 people were killed in the name of honour between 2013 and 2014

Earlier this month, a New York cab driver of Pakistani origin was sentenced to life in prison for ordering a double murder in Pakistan after his daughter fled a loveless, arranged marriage. Mohammad Chaudhry, 62, will spend the rest of his life behind bars for conspiring in two deaths carried out nearly 13,000 kilometers away from his Brooklyn home in 2013.

The saga started when Chaudhry’s American daughter, Amina Ajmal, was sent to Pakistan and held against her will for more than three years on her father’s orders and forced into an arranged marriage.

When she escaped and fled home to the United States, with help from the State department and with the man she loved, Shujat Abbas, her father was furious. Chaudhry and his relatives in Pakistan subjected the Abbas family, who lived in Gujrat, to repeated threats.

In January 2013, Chaudhry’s brother and other relatives fired gunshots repeatedly at the Abbas parents’ car. Chaudhry then telephoned Abbas’s father threatening to kill his entire family unless his daughter returned home. Days after, Abbas’s father and 21-year-old sister were shot dead. There was no doubt about who killed them. Chaudhry’s brother and other relatives had stood over the victims, holding guns and desecrating the bodies. For the Chaudhry family, their honour had been restored. For the rest of Pakistan, it was yet another moment of shame.

This story may have made headlines in the US, but in Pakistan it has become a matter of routine to witness and report on honour killings. Let us put things in perspective.

In February this year, it was disclosed in parliament by the ministry of law that some 933 people were killed across the country in the name of honour. A total of 456 and 477 cases of honour killing were reported in Pakistan in 2013 and 2014, respectively. The greatest number of such cases were reported from Sindh. But these are the official figures.

Unofficial estimates put the number at much higher. As many as 500 women and girls are killed for honour each year making Pakistan one of the most dangerous countries for women.

These victims are not just statistics: they are mothers, daughters and sisters. Their deaths destroy families. In most instances unfortunately, it is close family members who kill them in the first place.

In a presentation on a study he conducted, Dr Muazzam Nasrullah, a public health specialist in the US, tried to quantify the problem since data on the matter was hard to come by. He said he used newspaper reports compiled by HRCP for his study. According to HRCP data, 1,957 incidents of honour killings had been recorded over the past four years. This is higher than what the government reports.

The average rate of honour killings in women between 15-64 years was found to be 15 per million women per year. This may be yet another dubious world distinction we have achieved.

Murders for honour occur all over the country under various names like kala-kali (Punjab), karo-kari (Sindh), tor-tora (K-P) and Siyakari (Balochistan). Our government continues to ignore it as it is part of our local tradition, or so we are told. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Recently, our parliament which is swamped by landlords who prolong this feudal culture took some notice. The Senate passed the Anti-Rape Laws (Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill, 2014, and Anti-Honour Killings Laws (Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill, 2014. This was moved by a senator from the Pakistan Peoples Party, under whose government the situation is the worst in Sindh province.

Let us see what happens next. As things stand, honour killings rarely result in arrests or convictions. Even if they are taken into custody, most of the killers are set free on bail. Things need to change. But the change should come in attitudes. For example, rape cases are reported and registered, however, the conviction rates of the accused are abysmally low.

According to the figures revealed in the senate, in the last five years for instance, of the 103 reported rape cases registered in the Islamabad Capital Territory none of the culprits or accused have been convicted or brought to justice. It is clearly a case of criminal neglect on the part of our law enforcement authorities.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 11^th,  2015.

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