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| Honour Killings for Rape
For a woman to be targeted for killing in the name of honour, her consent -- or the lack of consent -- in an action considered shameful is irrelevant to the guardians of honour. Consequently a woman subjected to rape brings shame on her family just as she would when engaging in a consensual sexual relationship. "A woman raped shames the community and dishonours the man" according to Nafisa Shah36 -- it does not dishonour the rapist. In March 1999, a 16-year-old mentally retarded girl, Lal Jamilla Mandokhel, was repeatedly raped by a junior clerk of the local government department of agriculture who took her to a hotel in Parachinar, North West Frontier Province. The girl's uncle filed a complaint about the incident with police who apprehended the accused but handed over the girl to her tribe, the Mazuzai in the Kurram Agency, a tribal area which has its own legal and judicial system under provisions of the Constitution of Pakistan, apparently indifferent to, or not appreciating the danger to the girl's life. A jirga of Pashtun tribesmen decided that she had brought shame to her tribe and that its honour could only be restored by her death. She was shot dead in front of a tribal gathering. The rapist was reportedly detained by police for "his own protection" when tribesmen demanded that he be handed over to them so they could execute him in accordance with tribal traditions. It is not known where he is now, but it is to be noted that the man who was the accused was thought worthy of police protection, not the victim of the crime. An Islamabad-based NGO, Sahil, in a press release expressed its shock at the killing, saying it had been carried out not by an individual overcome with emotion but by a community which sat in judgment and pronounced the victim "guilty". Similarly two warring tribes in Shikarpur and Sukkur districts a few years ago reportedly killed their own women whom they considered 'disgraced' after rescuing them from their enemies who had abducted them. Nafisa Shah reports that women who publicly disclose the fact that they were raped and thereby dishonour their men are particularly vulnerable. Arbab Khatoon, raped by three men in a village in Jacobabad district lodged a complaint with police. She was murdered seven hours later, according to local residents by her relatives for bringing dishonour to the family by going to the police.37 Killings under the pretext of honour "Honour killing was punishment for violating the honour codes but the tribes have subverted the custom of killing not for honour but to obtain the compensation that the tribal settlement awards to the aggrieved person", Nafisa Shah summarizes.38 In honour killings if both the kari and karo are killed, the matter ends; if only the kari is killed and the karo escapes -- as is often the case -- he has to compensate the affected man, for the damage to honour he inflicted, for the woman's worth who was killed and to have his own life spared. This scheme provides easy opportunities for the unscrupulous to make money, obtain a woman in supposed compensation or to conceal other crimes, in the near certainty that honour killings, if they come to court at all, will be dealt with leniently. As Nafisa Shah puts it, a whole 'honour killing industry' has sprung up with a range of stakeholders including tribes people, police administration and tribal mediators. "Vested interests ... use the excuse of honour as a blanket cover for a multitude of sins."39 Some people have been reported to manipulate quickly aroused public anger at women's imputed immorality to extract their own private revenge. In November 1997, Mussarrat Bibi, a mother of three children, pregnant and married for 11 years, was reportedly beaten to death by frenzied villagers in village Chehel Khurd near Qilla Deedar Singh in Sheikupura district after rumours of her immoral behaviour spread. Inquiries, however, revealed that she had refused to work for the local landlords without any payment. Her father reported that on 3 November, Mussarrat who was visiting friends in a neighbouring village was told that her husband was ill; she immediately returned to her village where the landowner's men started shouting that she was immoral and beat her with sticks and clubs and threw stones at her; villagers reportedly readily joined in. She died of head injuries on the spot. Two people were reportedly briefly detained. Reports abound about men who, having murdered a man over issues not connected with honour, kill a woman of their own family as alleged kari to the murdered man to camouflage the murder as an honour killing. That an innocent woman loses her life does not appear to be of concern to the murderer who reaps definite benefits from the ruse. By projecting the murder as an honour killing, the murderer will escape the death penalty and will evade the need to pay compensation for the murder, irrespective of whether he comes before a tribal or a formal court. In the tribal system, murder calls for compensation to be paid to the family of the murder victim but if in the case of the honour killing, both karo and kari are slain, the matter is concluded and no compensation is to be paid to anyone. If tried in the formal judicial system, the culprit may be made to pay diyat [blood money] for murder to the victim's family. If tried for an honour killing, he will usually not be forced to pay compensation. The lure of monetary gain appears to have motivated many men to accuse their mothers, wives or female relatives of dishonouring their families and killing them in order to extract a compensation from the alleged karos who escape the killing. Nafisa Shah reports about a man in village Gujrani, near Kandhkot, killing his 85-year old mother as kari in 1992 and obtaining 25,000 Rupees from the man he declared the karo. Sometimes the money so extracted appears paltry. Fifty-year-old B. [name withheld] from Kandhkot, now in a Darul Aman in Sukkur, told Amnesty International that she had seven children by her first husband. Her brothers later married her to another man who proved to be a drug addict always in need of money. He declared her kari with her own son-in-law as karo and threatened to kill them both. The son-in-law then paid 3,000 rupees (about £35) to her brothers on condition that they would not treat B. as kari and another 3,000 rupees to her husband so that he would stop calling her kari. When the husband did not withdraw his threat to kill B., she sought shelter in the Darul Aman and filed for divorce. The desire to obtain land may also lie behind some fake honour killings. "Land is the main issue in Sindhi society", a journalist in Larkana said to Amnesty International, "all the rest follows from that. If a woman owns land, her brother may kill her to get her land; but even poor families nowadays imitate this pattern even though there is no property to grab, simply to ascertain themselves as equals in the system." He told Amnesty International in February 1999 that three months earlier in a village near Larkana, a man killed his wife, then went to a neighbouring village and killed a man sleeping in his bed. Members of the dead man's extended family ran away in fright leaving the murderer to grab the land thus vacated. "Women in our society are killed like hens" he concluded. "They have no way to escape and no say in what happens to them." Unable to repay loans, some men are known to have killed a woman of their own family to implicate someone in the debtor's family to ensure the loan would be extinguished in compensation. In 1997, a political magazine reported that a Magsi tribesman had killed his mother in Larkana and labelled the local bank manager as karo. A jirga directed the supposed karo to pay a large amount of money to avoid his own killing and to compensate the 'aggrieved' man for the loss of his honour and of his mother.40 Nafisa Shah reports that a new twist to seeking pecuniary benefit in honour killings is emerging among the Sabzoi tribe in Kandhkot district. Here a kari is not killed, but returned to her family with the promise that she would be declared "white" and acceptable if the family pays a heavy fine. The lure of compensation has in some cases led to outright and publicly known distortions of truth. In Ghotki, a man reportedly stood by his wife vouching for her innocence after she had been attacked and injured by his brother on the allegation of her illicit relationship; he took her to Karachi for treatment but when he was told that she would be permanently paralysed from the waist down, he reneged, declared her a kari and took a woman in compensation from the supposed karo's family. The fact that women are often given in compensation when illicit relations are alleged has led to a further perversion of the practice. If a woman refuses to marry a man, he may declare a man of her family a karo and demand her in compensation for not killing him. In some cases, he may even for this purpose kill a woman of his own family to lend weight to the allegation. Attiya Dawood cited an incident in village Moorath, related to her by the sister of the alleged karo, Amanullah. Amanullah had married a woman who had earlier been fond of her cousin Nazir, a married man with eight children. Unable to obtain her family's consent to marry her, Nazir murdered Amanullah, then killed his own innocent sister and declared both karo and kari. After a brief prison term, he was given Amanullah's wife, now a widow, in compensation for the supposed infringement of his honour and the loss of his sister. Nafisa Shah concludes that the "honour killing industry" turns the honour code upside down and indicates its degeneration. Women have monetary worth in themselves in tribal society and can be exchanged for money, but to knowingly kill them on false charges of sexual activity for monetary purposes is equivalent to prostituting them. "For in the honour system to use a woman to make money would be a dishonourable act."
36
Nafisa Shah: A story in black: Karo kari killings in Upper Sindh, Reuter
Foundation Paper 100, Oxford, 1998, p.56. Statutory law under the Zina
Ordinance does not strictly differentiate between rape and fornication
either; in fact, if a raped woman cannot prove that she did not consent to
intercourse, she is considered to have committed zina, fornication, which
attracts severe punishments. 37
Nafisa Shah: A story in black: Karo-kari killings in Upper Sindh, Reuter
Foundation Paper 100, Oxford, 1998, p. 56. 38
Nafisa Shah: A story in black: Karo kari killings in Upper Sindh, Reuter
Foundation Paper 100, Oxford, 1998, p.5. 39
Newsline, April 1998, p.18. 40
Massoud Ansari, "Blind justice" in: Herald, November 1997, p.87. Amnesty International
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