Pakistan law cracks down on 'honor killings'

Pakistan passed a law Thursday to clamp down on honor killings after a surge of recent high-profile killings of young women by family members prompted international outrage.

Under previous law, killers could go unpunished if they were granted forgiveness by relatives. The new law only allows family members to pardon the killer from the death penalty. The murderer would still face a mandatory sentence of 12.5 years if convicted of the killing.

"We have plugged all loopholes in the anti-honor killing legislation," said Justice Minister Zaid Hamid, during the debate over the bill in parliament.

The impetus for the bill came after the murder in July of social media celebrity Qandeel Baloch, 26, who was killed by her younger brother. Baloch was a singer and model whose sensual videos and suggestive photos on social media insulted her brother’s “honor.”

Baloch’s brother, Waseem Azeem, drugged and then strangled her as she slept. While confessing his crime in court, he said he was proud of the murder.

“I’ve earned heaven and honor by providing relief to my family,” Azeem said in court, according to GEO News, a local TV station. "Girls are born only to stay at home and bring honor to the family by following traditions but Qandeel had never done that. My friends used to send me her videos/pictures on my mobile and everyone was sharing.”

In the same month, British citizen Samia Shahid, 28, was raped and murdered by her father and her ex-husband Muhammad Shakeel in Punjab province after being lured there by her ex-husband on a ruse. Shakeel said Shahid dishonored him by divorcing him. Her family initially told police the woman had suffered a heart attack, but the authorities determined she had been strangled.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif pledged to stop honor killings earlier this year when Pakistani filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy won an Oscar for her documentary on the practice,

“With the passage of the law people will know that it is not okay to kill with impunity and that they are punishable for their actions like in any other murder case," said Sen. Sughra Imam of the Pakistan People’s Party, which sponsored the bill. "No law will eradicate a crime entirely but the law should be a deterrent. Laws are supposed to guide better behavior, not allow destructive behavior to continue with impunity.”

Imam represents a district in the southern Punjab, where honor killing is a problem, she said.

“I have handled these cases personally in my constituency and, in my experience, 99% of the time, the accused walks away unscathed,” she said. “Most of the honor cases are not reported. Even within the registered cases, the conviction rates of the accused are very low."

Honor killing is not a specifically Islamic tradition but it’s practiced mostly in the Middle East and South Asia.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan confirmed 1,276 incidents between February 2014 and February 2016. Those statistics may underestimate the problem because most cases go unreported due to cultural acceptance of the killings, lack of interest among the police and the dysfunctional judicial system, researchers said.

“Honor is being used as a mask to give moral and societal legitimacy to diverse acts of violence against women,” said Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch. “Pakistani law literally allows killers to get away with murdering the women in their families.”

Still, high-profile cases have kept the issue alive in Pakistan and around the world.

In a recent case in Punjab, mother-of-three Khalida Bibi and her alleged boyfriend were lynched and left hanging in a tree by Bibi’s husband.

Similarly, Mubeen Rajhu, 24, from Lahore shot his sister, Tasleem,18, because she married a Christian man. Even though the Christian man had converted to Islam to be with her, Tasleem's brother decided to murder her after being teased about her relationship by his co-workers at a steel mill.

 

“I had to kill her. There was no choice,” he said, according to the Associated Press.

The pervasiveness of the practice means the government would need to do more than close loopholes to stamp out honor killings for good, said Nafisa Shah, a member of parliament with the opposition Pakistan People’s Party who has written about honor killings in southern Pakistan.

“The judiciary has to work on the judges at the trial court level,” Shah said.  “The criminal justice system needs to be improved and emphasis placed on scientific evidence rather than just being witness-based. There is a lot of pressure on the judges to settle honor killing cases amicably and forgive.”

Retired judge Nasir Aslam Zahid added that in spite of the new law, the Pakistani courts won’t easily penetrate the country’s most isolated and traditional communities.

“Usually it is the poorest of the poor who are involved in honor crimes,” Zahid said. “It will be a long wait until we make any progress.”