Law to curb honour killings

2004-07-09 17:17

Islamabad - Pakistan will enact a new law to crack down on honour killings, a crime that has claimed more than 4 000 mostly female lives since 1998, the government told parliament on Friday.

Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat speaking in the senate, or upper house, said the law was on the anvil and would be brought before parliament for debate and approval soon.

Hayat said that 4 101 people had died in "Karo Kari" and honour killings in the country during the last four years, including 2 774 women and 1 327 men, according to state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP).

Karo Kari, in which a man and woman are killed over alleged illicit relations, is practiced mostly in the rural part of southern Sindh province.

Elsewhere in the country, it is mostly women accused of sexual misconduct who are killed in the name of protecting family honour.

Human rights activists welcomed the government's move but said the real issue was implementation, as already existing laws against such practices had never been seriously put into force.

"The problem is not the lack of legislation, the problem is lack of implementation, particularly when it relates to crime against women," the private Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said.

"The pledge by the government is a move in the right direction and it is an acknowledgement that the problem exists and exists on a very large scale," Kamila Hyat, the commission's spokesperson told AFP.

Rights activists say police and the lower judiciary tend to take a lenient view of criminals guilty of killing in the name of honour.

The minister said only two accused were convicted in Sindh, where 1 099 fell victim to Karo Kari during the four-year period, according to APP.

Murder is punishable by death in Pakistan.

- AFP