Honour killings still rampant

2003-09-15 11:57

Karachi, Pakistan - At least 631 women and six girls died in "honour killings" perpetrated by their own relatives in Pakistan in the first eight months of this year, researchers for an independent human rights organisation said on Monday.

The Madadgar group said that about half of the deaths were reported in southern Sindh province, and that many more cases were believed to have been unreported in the conservative communities of Baluchistan and North West Frontier Province, both bordering Afghanistan.

"The actual number of women who fell victim to gruesome honour killings is definitely much higher than the reported cases but it is hard to record each case, especially when you don't have enough resources," Zia Awan, of the Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid group, told The Associated Press.

Husbands, brothers, fathers?

Madadgar is jointly run by the lawyers' group and the UN Children's Fund. It found that husbands carried out 247 of the killings, brothers 112, fathers 54, sons 25 and uncles two. In the other cases, there was no mention of who carried out the killing.

Researcher Amir Murtaza of Madadgar said on Monday that the findings were based on media reports. The group monitors 25 newspapers in the Urdu, English and Sindhi languages each day.

Honour killings are usually motivated by a woman having, or being suspected of, a sexual relationship outside marriage. Other reasons could be refusal to marry a man selected by her parents, or marrying without her family's consent.

A killing may be carried out on the orders of a jirga, or council of village elders, but in most cases the decision is made by the immediate family. Often the woman is given no chance to explain or defend herself.

Awan said in most cases, men accused of involvement in illicit affairs escape punishment.

Against the law, but?

Such honour killings are against Pakistani law, but in conservative rural communities traditional attitudes hold sway, and often police and the judicial system fail to prosecute those responsible.

"There is a need for a strict law which should hold the jirga or influential people of the villages responsible," Awan said. Witness protection programmes are also needed for law enforcement to be more effective, he said.

Sindh government spokesperson Salahuddin Haider said most honour killings in the province were reported in the upper part of Sindh, in the districts of Shikarpur, Jaccobabad and Larkana close to the southwestern province of Baluchistan. He had no official figures.

He said the provincial assembly is expected to approve a draft law aimed at curbing honour killings. "The government has already instructed the police to treat these killings as murder and show no leniency," he said.

A report by the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said that in 2002 at least 461 women were killed by family members in honour killings. Its findings were based on reports from just two of Pakistan's four provinces: Punjab and Sindh. The commission said the number of killings could be much higher.

- AP