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IRIN Focus on ritual ‘honour killings’

The people in the tiny village of Pir Chandam in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province still talk about the cold-blooded murder of 16-year old Rukhsana and 18-year old Tayyab Kharos. In May 2000, they were caught talking to each other by their relatives, who suspected that the two were planning to elope. After being tied up all night, both were brutally murdered for bringing shame to their families. They were buried unceremoniously by their relatives, who refused to file a criminal complaint against the killer. “We don’t repent her murder because she has ruined our family reputation. We will neither accept his dead body nor register a case against the honour killer,” a male relative told IRIN. Rukhsana and Tayyab were victims of the custom of ‘honour killing’, which continues to be widely practised in Pakistan despite protests by human rights activists. Hundreds of young people, most of them women, are killed in the name of family honour every year all over the country. In many areas of Pakistan, even a hint of an illicit premarital affair can mean a death sentence for the couple involved. The ritual is known as Karo Kari, karo being the offending male and kari the female. No serious effort has been made to curb this practice since Pakistan gained independence [from the then British protectorate of India] in 1947. By law, an ‘honour killing’ is classified as murder, but a legal loophole means that a killing under a “grave and sudden provocation” is not considered murder. In most cases, people who kill for the sake of this family honour go unpunished. Despite the declaration last year by Pakistan’s military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, that such killings would be treated and tried as murder, three to five such incidents are reported in local newspapers almost every day. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan estimated that 1,000 ‘honour killings’ occurred in the country last year. However, the commission said the number could be much higher because many murders go unreported. The international human rights NGO Amnesty International, in a report published last year, strongly condemned Pakistan for the practice. It said hundreds of Pakistani women were killed every year on suspicion of romantic liaisons, for seeking divorce or having been raped. “In Pakistan, honour crimes are justified in the name of tradition, but the tradition itself has been distorted and corrupted to allow for widespread abuse,” Amnesty reported. Killers in the name of this tradition, usually male family members, escaped punishment as a result of legal loopholes, it said. “For some women, suicide appears the only means of escape,” Amnesty added. Although the tradition is supposed to apply equally to both sexes, rights activists contend that the dice is heavily loaded against women in this as in other aspects of life. It is common practice, they say, for a man suspected of dishonouring a girl’s family to save his life by paying compensation or offering the family a female relative in marriage. The only way a female marked for an honour killing can save her life is by seeking refuge with a feudal chieftain or a religious spiritual leader, known as a Pir. Human rights activists believe that the houses of such tribal leaders are brimming with these women. In many instances, it is believed, they are treated as slaves, sexually abused by those who give them shelter or sold for a small profit. Villagers of Shahdadkot, near Larkana in Sindh province, say that Karo Kari is a part of their life and a means to cope with the issue of finding a wife, sister or mother in a compromising condition. A group of villagers on the outskirts of Jacobabad near the border of Sindh and Baluchistan provinces, told IRIN they firmly believed in the ritual. “We cannot bear people ridiculing our women. If she perpetuates sin, she deserves nothing but death,” one villager commented. In many cases, the Karo Kari killings have triggered feuds. In January last year, six people were killed in Bhai Khan Kehar village in southern Sindh. The honour killing of Nasrullah Jeho’s wife and Allah Bakhash Kehar prompted a feud between local tribes, which claimed 16 lives. A prominent Pakistani political leader, who is also a tribal chieftain, justified the practice of ‘honour killings’ to IRIN. “It is an old tribal ritual which people sometimes misuse for their vested interests but a genuine ‘karo’ and ‘kari’ cannot be spared. Both must be eliminated if found guilty,” he said. The tribal leader told IRIN he would like to see the practice legally regulated. “This is a centuries-old tradition and cannot be removed by the stroke of a pen,” he added. “To commit a Karo Kari murder you must have at least 50,000 to 1,000,000 rupees in hand,” said a police officer in Larkana district, Sindh province. The killer normally surrendered to the police, paid a bribe and, in return, received assistance in covering up the crime, he added. Sanaullah Abbassi, a senior superintendent in Shikarpur district in Sindh, which records the highest number of ‘honour killings’ in Pakistan, has launched a campaign against the practice. He said an average of 30 to 40 women in his district were killed under these circumstances each month up to around September last year. Since he started his campaign, only four cases had been reported in the last five months, he told IRIN. “I’ve asked my police station house officer to register a case against these killers and have also requested the judges expedite these cases,” Abbassi said. Thousands of cases pertaining to Karo Kari killings are pending in courts all over Pakistan. In the past year, since Musharraf’s decree that they be treated as murder, only one person has been charged and tried. That one killer was hanged on 9 January at Central Prison in Sukkur, Sindh Province, for committing a double murder. Yar Mohammed Magsi, 61, killed his wife and her alleged lover in Chang village in Sindh. “We failed to protect the life of Yar Mohammed, because of poverty ... if we had some money, we could have saved his life,” said Magsi’s brother, who visited the prison to collect his body. Human rights groups are sceptical about Musharraf’s announcement on ‘honour killings’, and believe that not much can be done to end the practice until a change is brought about in social attitudes.

This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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