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Pakistan:
Violence against Women in the Name of Honor
Background
The lives of millions of women in Pakistan are circumscribed by traditions
that enforce extreme seclusion and submission to men. Traditional
perceptions of honor severely limit some of the most basic rights of women
in Pakistan. Every year in Pakistan hundreds of women, of all ages and in
all parts of the country are reported killed in the name of honor. Many
more cases go unreported. Almost all go unpunished.
The number of such killings appears to be steadily increasing as the
perception of what constitutes honor widens. The flimsiest of suspicions,
such as a rumor spread in a village, or in one extreme case, a man's dream
of his wife's adultery, is enough to elicit lethal violence. Women are not
even given a chance to clear up possible misunderstandings. Tradition
decrees only one method to restore honor - to kill the offending woman.
Some awareness of rights has seeped into the secluded world of women in
Pakistan. Tragically, women's tentative steps to assert these rights - by
choosing a spouse or divorcing an abusive husband - are increasingly seen
to undermine honor as well. The backlash has been both harsh and swift,
resulting in an increase of honor killings in Pakistan.
Tribal Code of Honor
Originally a Baloch and Pashtun tribal custom, honor killings are founded
in the twin concepts of honor and commodification of women. Women are
married off for a bride price paid to the father. If this commodity is
'damaged,' the proprietor, the father or husband, has a right to
compensation. If a husband kills his wife for alleged sexual misbehavior
and her alleged 'lover' gets away, the latter has to pay the husband
compensation, for the wife that was lost and for his own life which was
spared. Often the dead woman's alleged 'lover' hands over a sister to the
husband, in addition to a large amount of money.
Satta-watta marriages, which involve exchange of siblings across
generations, put an additional burden on women to abide by their father's
marriage arrangements. Often women choosing another spouse are abducted by
their own relatives and not heard from again.
Standards of honor and chastity are not equally applied to men and women
in Pakistan, though the honor code applies to both equally. In surveys
conducted in the North West Frontier Province and Balochistan, men were
found going unpunished for 'illicit relationships' whereas women were
killed on the merest rumor of 'impropriety.'
According Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), 888 women were
murdered in Punjab alone. Of these, 595 killings were carried out by
relatives and 286 were reportedly for reasons of honor. The Sindh
Graduates Association said that in the first three months of 1999 alone,
132 honor killings had been reported there.
Police, Legal and Judicial Bias
The law of Qisas and Diyat (regarding physical injury, manslaughter and
murder) allows the victim's heirs to decide whether they report it or
prosecute the offender. In effect it condones the family forgiving the
honor killer and signals that men murdering their wives will not be
punished in the same manner as in the murder of other people.
Police have upheld this custom both by apprehending condemned women
instead of protecting them, and by accepting bribes either to turn them
over to their families or the tribe, or not to register complaints against
perpetrators.
When an honor killing gets into the courts, the judiciary has dealt with
such crimes with extraordinary leniency. The law provides many loopholes
for murderers in the name of honor to get away, so tradition remains
unbroken. In fact, more and more killings committed for other motives take
on the guise of honor killings on the correct assumption that they are
rarely punished. These practices deny women their right to be protected
and treated equally before the law, rights that Pakistan must accord to
them under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Seeking Divorce
Even seeking divorce from a physically abusive husband can trigger a
deadly attack. Twenty-nine year old Samia Sarwar was shot dead in her
lawyer's office in Lahore on April 6,1999. Her parents instigated the
murder, feeling that Samia had brought shame on the family by seeking
divorce after 10 years of marital abuse. Although the perpetrators can be
easily identified, not one of them has been arrested. Instead, her lawyer,
Hina Jilani, and her colleague, Asma Jahangir, have been publicly
condemned and received death threats.
At the end of July, the upper house of Pakistan's Parliament rejected even
a highly watered-down version of a resolution condemning honor killing
demonstrating the significance of this culturally entrenched practice.
For Rape
In a hideous twist, women victims of rape are also seen to have defiled
their male relatives' honor. Sixteen-year-old Jamilla, for example, was
repeatedly raped by a junior clerk of the local agriculture department in
her province. Jamilla's uncle filed a complaint with the police, but the
police arrested Jamilla and turned her over to her tribe. She was shot
dead in March 1999 after a tribal council of elders decided that she had
brought shame to her tribe and that honor could only be restored by her
death. Police detained the rapist for "his own protection" when
tribesmen demanded that he be handed over to them for execution. His
current whereabouts are not known.
State Responsibility
Having ratified the United Nations Women's Convention (CEDAW) and under
its own Constitution, Pakistan is obliged to treat women equally and to
protect their fundamental human rights. Pakistan has also ratified the UN
Convention on the Rights of the Child. Yet it has systematically failed to
prevent, investigate and punish violence against women and girls, and has
taken no measures against discriminatory laws or customs. AI recommends
the following urgent measures in these three areas:
Legal measures
- Review
criminal laws and revise them to ensure equality before the law and
equal protection of law to women and girls.
- Make
the sale or giving of women and girls in marriage against financial
consideration in lieu of a fine or imprisonment, a criminal offense.
- Adopt
legislation that makes all types of domestic violence a criminal
offense and ensure that law enforcement and judicial officials are
made aware of their obligation to enforce it.
- Ensure
that provincial governments investigate all reports of honor killings
and that perpetrators are brought to justice. Police should promptly
and without bias register and investigate all complaints of honor
killings.
- Withdraw
Pakistan's reservations to the UN Women's Convention and ratify the
Optional Protocol, and report on implementation on it and the
Convention of the Rights of the Child.
- Abolish
the death penalty.
Preventive measures
- Undertake
wide-ranging public awareness programs through the media, the
education system and public announcements to inform both men and women
of women's equal rights under CEDAW.
- Provide
gender sensitization training to law enforcement and judicial
personnel.
- Ensure
that data and statistics are collected in a manner that ensures the
problem of honor killings is made visible.
Protective measures
- Ensure
that human rights activists, lawyers and women's rights groups can
pursue their legitimate activities without harassment or fear.
Expand
victim support services, both state and NGO, including refuges,
counseling, rehabilitation and support services for women and girls at
risk of honor-related violence. Until Pakistan's government takes
seriously its obligations under CEDAW, which under Article Five obliges
states to "modify the social and cultural patters of conduct of men
and women" to eliminate prejudice and discriminatory customs, the
women of Pakistan will continue to pay the price of their families' honor
with their freedom and their lives.
Amnesty International
http://www.amnesty-usa.org |
