Confronting 'honour' killing in Balochistan

The international NGO, Oxfam, has launched a campaign to fight the increasingly common practice of ‘honour’ killings in Pakistan’s remote southern province of Balochistan. It used to be an unusual custom to punish men and women for having illicit relationships. It has evolved into common practice in recent years with more and more women falling victim to assorted crimes carried out under the common name of ‘honour’ across the country, particularly in Pakistan's tribal belt, according to rights activists. “In recent years, the threat of violence in women’s lives has significantly increased. More and more women are being harassed, raped, and murdered by close relatives for personal, sexual and financial gains but in most cases it goes unnoticed,” Dr Arif Mehmood, campaign manager at Oxfam told IRIN in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province. “Women, regardless of their age, are being killed to settle disputes, acquire land, or pay off debts. But ‘honour’ is used as a convenient cover to legitimise crimes against women,” Mehmood noted. “To bring the discussion of such a progressive issue like women's rights and raising awareness against their killings in conservative Balochistan, deeply entrenched in tribal culture itself, is a big achievement,” Mehmood said. “To create a behavioural change and discourage the brutal practice we have engaged political activists, traditional tribal leadership, elders, religious leaders and local civil society groups in every district,” he said. Oxfam aims to reduce the social acceptance of such killings through a six year campaign aiming to achieve a significant decrease in the number of women killed under the banner of ‘honour’. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) defines 'honour killing' as any practice in which men kill female relatives in the name of family 'honour' for forced or suspected sexual activity outside marriage, even when they have been victims of rape. In Pakistan, since many cases go unreported, accurate statistics are hard to compile for killings in the name of ‘honour’. According to statistics compiled by Pakistan’s leading rights body, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), a total of 579 people, 546 of them women, fell victim to the practice of honour killing during 2004. Different names were used for the crime in different parts of the country. “Remote areas, a small and scattered population, a strong tribal tradition and lack of free space for civil society - a combination of all these factors account for under-reporting of such cases from the province,” Nasarullah Khan, regional coordinator of the campaign, told IRIN in Quetta. “To kill a sister, daughter, wife or other female family member for personal financial gains is usual in this region,” said Rahima Mengal, a social activist in Naseerabad district, some 350 km southeast of Quetta. “In most cases nowadays, ‘honour killing’ is being practiced to settle personal enmity with an opponent. A man accuses the rival of having unlawful relations with any of his female family members and further to prove the allegation, he kills the woman and then brands the opponent as ‘Kara’ or ‘entitled to death’. As a result, the family of that accused would either pay the ransom or again his sister or daughter would be married with the murderer to save the life of her brother,” said Mengal. Social activists confirm that this vicious way of settling personal disputes is becoming increasingly common. “Just putting everything in the name of restoring ‘honour’ of family or tribe legitimises the killing under tribal culture,” she said. “Honour killing has not Islamic or legal in Pakistan, but it has strong roots in socio-cultural norms and traditional practices,” said Dr Mehmood of Oxfam. “The rights of women in our society are further compromised with [the] formulation of provisions that are assumed to represent Muslim culture and jurisprudence,” the Oxfam campaign manager added. “In our conservative traditional society, women bear the entire onus of ‘honour’ of the family and tribe. At the same time, men avail [themselves of] more behavioural laxity with far less severe punishment in case of being accused,” Mengal said. The modes of behaviour regarded as ‘undesirable’ for a woman in Pakistan cover a broad range, including marrying a man of her choice, seeking employment outside the home, disobeying the family patriarch, going outside the home without the permission of a male family member, being accused of having illicit relations or just seeking a divorce, explained a social activist. This campaign is a part of Oxfam’s South Asia regional campaign to end violence against women that involves more than 400 civil society groups and organisations in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The campaign started in the Bolan, Sibbi, Naseerabad, Ja’ffarabad, Jhal Magsi and Khuzdar districts of Balochistan province. The ‘We Can End Honour Killing’ campaign will be launched in November this year and operate in 17 districts of Sindh, Punjab and North West Frontier Province (NWFP).