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Editorial overview State
as the complainant, perhaps awareness “Culturally,
men can also
The
peculiar case of Sindh No
second home
Journalism, by definition,
is never dull or monotonous. The sheer novelty of problems and crises keeps
adding colour to our lives, turning us journalists into virtual sadists. We
derive a kick out of bad news. Though sometimes, even we
get bored and frustrated. That is when we report on issues that refuse to
get better. Sometimes, even we get angry when we see these issues staying
unresolved and getting worse. Our Special Report today
covers one such issue. Twenty years ago, we reported them as honour
killings. Today we have become more sensitive; we now call them honour
crimes. The killings continue in the name of tribal customs. They continue
to go unreported or reported as plain murders. Yes there are more statistics
available than before. Yes there are more resolutions in the assemblies. But
that's about it. The high court may have declared jirgas and panchayats
illegal but they continue as legitimate courts because, as Samar Minallah
tells us, they are "speedy, accessible and cheap". If and once the matter
reaches a court of law, the judges' mindsets are the same as that of the
police officials reporting the case. The perpetrators are seldom punished. The notion of honour is so
deeply ingrained in the minds of our countrymen and women that they have
carried it with them beyond the geographical bounds of this country. Today,
Pakistanis are in the news in Europe and North America for these crimes of
honour that they perpetrate on their children, especially daughters,
bringing a collective shame for the country as a whole. The number of cases
reported in 2011 were higher than before and this drew our attention to
these heinous crimes that we have learnt to live with. Beyond this,
everything has been said and so many times. We have also done features on
separate graveyards of women (in Punjab and in Sindh) who died of murders in
the name of honour (and weren't spared even in death). Nothing seems to
work. Except that the perpetrators think of new ways to punish the erring
women - now they either bury them alive or let them be eaten by dogs. But there does come a time when you stop getting a kick out of bad news and only want it all to end — at once.
Crimes
of honour Unless the
police and the court take a more proactive stand on the issue, women will
continue to be murdered in the name of honour in this country and the crime,
more often than not, will be buried with them By Naziha
Syed Ali For Bashir and his wife
Nafisa*, an act as simple as setting foot on their native village spells
certain death. They have not been back since they got married six years ago.
Their crime: they fell in love. Not even the fact that they are now parents
of three little boys will Nafisa’s family be saved from a swift and brutal
retribution. In the latter’s eyes, only murder can avenge the
“dishonour” brought upon them by her actions. “We were attacked by her
brothers when we went to the Sukkur sessions court in connection with the
case of kidnapping they had filed against me but we managed to escape,”
says Bashir. Two months after their
elopement, a jirga presided over by the local feudal decreed that the
couple, whenever and wherever found, was to be killed. Moreover, Bashir’s
family was to give Rs 200,000 as well as three girls to Nafisa’s tribe as
compensation. To this day, they live in
hiding, moving from one place to another lest they are discovered. Back in
his village in district Naushahro Feroze, Sindh, Bashir’s family remains
under threat. The couple is fortunate to
be alive. According to an Aurat Foundation report, 557 women alone were
killed on the pretext of honour in Pakistan in 2010. Honour killings, also
known as karokari (meaning black) or siyahkari, occur more frequently in
areas where feudal traditions are deeply entrenched for this is the milieu
where women are considered the property of the family, to be bartered and
traded according to the will of the men. And, sometimes, put to death on the
pretext of having violated the tribal code of honour. In a society where justice
is a distant dream for most, it is even more elusive for victims of honour
killing. The dice is loaded against them from the very beginning of the
judicial process. Many murders in the name
of honour go entirely unreported. In other instances, the police will
usually record the crime in the FIR as murder rather than an act of
‘honour killing’, even though the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2004 for
the first time defines “honour crimes” in the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).
This omission compromises the entire process of obtaining justice. “When a case of honour
killing is reported, a different mode of investigation needs to be
employed,” says advocate Maliha Zia Lari who recently authored a report on
the subject for the Aurat Foundation. “This includes talking to family
members and people in the locality to explore underlying issues. This is not
a routine investigation but a lengthy one that requires the police to keep
going back again and again.” An ordinary murder is very
different from an honour killing. In the latter, the complainant in the FIR,
the nominated accused and the witnesses are usually related to one another.
This makes it more likely that the complainant will hide or twist facts in
the narrative of the FIR and that the witnesses will change their statements
in the court, giving the benefit of the doubt to the accused. Moreover, according to DIG
Khalique Shaikh, “In such cases it is not only the principal accused who
is involved; there are accessories to the crime. These include those
involved in the planning, those who assisted by their presence at the crime
scene, and those involved in aiding, abetting and concealing the crime. When
the motive is shown as honour and the investigating officer is fully
sensitised, he will look into the matter properly and take action against
all these. If this motive remains hidden in the FIR the investigation is
likely to ignore these aspects.” The effects of a flawed
investigation carry over into the courtroom where arguments are based on the
FIR and police findings. Also, when an honour killing is recorded as murder,
the accused can be released on bail by the court because murder is a
bailable offence, whereas honour killing was made a non-bailable one under
the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2004. Shirin Javed, a human
rights activist in Peshawar, says that according to information gleaned from
media reports and crisis centres, there were around 25 instances of honour
killing in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in 2010. The police did not register even one
of them as an honour killing. It is not only the desire
to take the easy way out that makes the police desist from recording an
honour killing as such in the FIR. Many in the police force are not
personally invested in probing cases of honour killing because they share
the same mindset as that of the perpetrators. The Aurat Foundation’s
report mentioned above cites the example of the DPO Nowshera, Nisar Tanoli
who asked the researcher, “If you come to know that your wife is involved
with someone, what will your reaction be? Won’t you kill her?” Even when the police tries
to do its duty in such cases, it is hampered by institutional weaknesses.
These include paucity of training in forensic investigation, difficulty in
locating genuine eye-witnesses, and lack of assistance from family members
of victims. The parallel
quasi-judicial systems prevalent in many areas of Pakistan also play a
pernicious role in perverting the course of justice. The institution of the
jirga, an integral part of the feudal setup, is a source of income for many
waderas, with major tribal disputes netting them at least five million
rupees from each side. Mediating an issue as incendiary as honour is another
opportunity for financial gain. Advocate Shabbir Shar
describes how investigations are deliberately skewed by the police at the
behest of the local landlord, so that even if the case does go to court,
there is no chance of a conviction. “They will deliberately engineer
inconsistencies in the witness statements, between the evidence collected
from the crime scene and the post-mortem report,” he says. “For example, they may
collect one empty from the place of the incident whereas the body has
evidence of three bullet wounds. These inconsistencies go to the benefit of
the accused at the time of trial.” Other tactics are also
routinely used to discourage families from going to court. In December 2011,
a jirga held in Shikarpur was presided over by former minister Manzoor
Panhwar. It levied a fine on the brothers of a woman murdered by her husband
because they had filed a case of honour killing against their
brother-in-law. On an occasion when a case
goes to trial, the general problems in the legal system come into play, such
as interminable delays and fees collected under various heads by state
prosecutors who are supposed to provide their services gratis. For those seeking justice
for their daughters murdered in the name of honour — and there is an
increasing number at least in Sindh — there are added perils. “Because
of the delay, they are exposed to danger from interested parties for that
much longer,” says advocate Maliha Zia Lari. “They are also under
psychological pressure from the community because there is shame associated
with taking such cases to court. There is a perception that the girl did
something wrong and, by pursuing the case, they are seen as condoning their
daughter’s behaviour.” Such pressures compel many families to give up
and settle out of court. Moreover, those charged
with honour crimes often have an edge in court not only courtesy flawed
investigations but by virtue of loopholes in the law itself. Under the Qisas
and Diyat Ordinance 1990, the offence is a compoundable one, which means
that the victim’s legal heirs can forgive the accused or agree to blood
money whereby he is spared the death penalty. Given that in cases of honour
killing, the accused is often a member of the victim’s own family, this is
tantamount to a perversion of justice. While the Criminal
(Amendment) Act 2004, also known as the Honour Killings Law, increases the
penalty for honour killing to 25 years or death in the absence of a
compromise, the punishment is not mandatory. With no option of minimum
punishment available to them, many judges are reluctant to go the distance
in the absence of an ironclad case, as a result of which the accused go
scot-free. Of late, it has also been
seen that the plea of “grave and sudden provocation” which was often
used successfully as a mitigating circumstance by the defence before the
passage of the 2004 law, has once again started colouring judgments,
particularly by the Lahore High Court. There are lawyers who
acknowledge that in comparison with the conservative and patriarchal mindset
of the latter, the Sindh High Court has been more progressive. According to
journalist Nisar Khokar, “For this reason, many couples from Punjab and
Balochistan who want to have a civil marriage are choosing to appear before
the Sindh courts.” However, progress on the
issue of honour killings remains slow. Unless the police and the court take
a more proactive stand on the issue, women will continue to be murdered in
the name of honour in this country and the crime, more often than not, will
be buried with them. State
as the complainant, perhaps In 'honour'
killings, the Qisas and Diyat law is open to most misuse By
Aisha Gazdar With judicial activism at
its most vigorous, now may be a good time to revisit how the act of
intentional murder in Pakistan became a crime against the individual,
thereby allowing the state to withdraw its responsibility from prosecuting
and punishing the perpetrator of one of the most heinous crimes in society. Although promulgated in
1990, the law of Qisas and Diyat (retribution and blood money) has its roots
in the Islamisation of the country's laws and institutions by General Zia ul
Haq that started soon after his coup in July 1977. Zia set up Shariat
Benches in 1978 in each of the four high courts, their specific purpose
being to examine all the laws of the country in the light of Quran and
Sunnah. Between 1979 and 1980,
about two dozen petitions were filed in the Shariat Benches of Lahore,
Karachi and Peshawar, challenging the existing criminal laws repugnant to
the principles of Islam. Finally, in 1989, the Shariat Appellete Bench of
the Supreme Court decided on all these petitions. This decision is known as
the Gul Hassan case. In this decision,
provisions relating to murder and bodily hurt in the Pakistan Penal Code and
the Criminal Procedure Code were found to be repugnant to Quran and Sunnah
and the government ordered to make changes in accordance with the Islamic
law. By this time, after 11 years of Zia's dictatorship, elections had taken
place and the PPP, under Ms Benazir Bhutto's leadership, had formed the
government, albeit with limited power. The Federation of Pakistan did file
review petitions challenging the Shariat Appellete Bench's decision. The
court, however, set aside these petitions and ordered the government to
amend the relevant laws. Thus, in October 1990, the Qisas and Diyat
Ordinance came into force. Without going into the
details of all the changes that were brought in, the law essentially made
murder a crime against the individual. Previously, there were only two
punishments for intentional murder if proven - death sentence or life
imprisonment. However, with the Qisas and Diyat Ordinance (made an Act in
1997), the heirs of the deceased could forgive the offender either by taking
'diyat' money, according to the Muslim law of inheritance, or by forgiving
the accused in the name of God. So, murder became a compoundable offence.
The details and procedures for this compromise can be found in sections 309
and 310 of the Pakistan Penal Code read with section 345 of the Criminal
Procedure Code. While proponents of the
law argue that it has helped many old enmities and long standing blood feuds
to come to a closure, the provision of compromise has had serious
implications for the two most vulnerable sections of society, the poor and
the women lot. According to the practitioners of criminal law, in murder
cases where the accused party wields influence and money, a compromise (or 'raazinama',
as it is usually called), is very common. But it is in the cases of
supposed 'honour' killings that this law is open to the most misuse. In its
annual report of 2010, the HRCP reported 791 murders in the name of honour.
A report by Aurat Foundation states that between the years 2008 and 2010,
1,636 women and young girls became victims of honour killings. More
recently, the HRCP reported that in the first nine months of 2011, 675 girls
and women were killed on the pretext of honour, 71 of them were under the
age of 18. The actual number must be
even higher as a lot of these cases go unreported. What this means is that
on any given day in Pakistan at least two women are murdered by a close
family relative. While factors like the
ingrained feudal concept of control and lack of education are equally
responsible, the impunity which the law itself gives to the perpetrator has
played a significant role in the increase in these murders. When a brother kills his
sister, the complainant is also a family member and inevitably there is a 'razinama'
where the father or the mother would file for compromise. The same is true
for cases where husbands have killed their wives as in Pakistan most
marriages take place within the family as cousin marriages as well as 'watta
satta' exchanges. I witnessed this first
hand on a recent visit to the district of Shahdadkot in upper Sindh while
making a documentary on the so called 'karo kari' murders. In a village
about two hours' drive from the dusty town of Qambar Shahdadkot, we met
Sohni, a young mother of three. Sitting in the winter sun and chatting with
her female cousins there was nothing about Sohni that seemed out of the
ordinary until she took off the headscarf to show us the scars on her scalp
and around her neck. And, then, we could see how brutally she had been hit
with an axe by her husband. She spent nearly two months in Larkana hospital
fighting for her life, while her husband was put behind bars for the same
amount of time. That's it - two months for
a crime that could have taken her life. Furthermore, theirs is an
exchange or 'watta satta' marriage and both sides of the family decided to
file for a compromise. According to Ghulam Pathan, the State Prosecutor in
Shahdadkot, almost all cases of violence or murders that take place in the
family arrive at a settlement. In the absence of state protection and no
resources of her own what would Sohni do except reconciling with the man who
almost took her life. It is the withdrawal of
the responsibility of the State to punish the culprits that has serious
repercussions. The abovementioned incident testifies to the severity of the
issue. In 2005, the law was
amended in cases of honour killings. The amendment ensured that even with a
compromise the judge could give a prison sentence which had to be more than
10 years. This law was welcomed as a first step in reducing honour killings.
However, in practice, this did not happen as the cases were not registered
as honour killings but murders and it is literally back to square one. According to Khadim Rind,
District Police Officer in Khairpur, one solution is that in murder cases,
the state becomes the complainant rather than the family member. But this
means that the law needs to go back to its original form when murder was a
crime against the state. If the parliament is too weak to do that, perhaps
the superior judiciary could take note of this 20-year-old anomaly in the
law?
Changing
mindsets Why
awareness campaigns and measures to check honour crimes have failed to
deliver By
Shahzada Irfan Ahmed There have been several
attempts to sensitise the masses on the menace of honour crimes and to
discourage the practice of punishing women in the name of honour in the
country. For example, there were training sessions and material
distributions by the National Commission on the Status for Women, an
establishment of the Human Rights cells in Sindh, UNDP facilitated training
of police officials in the country, the launching of research reports and
on-ground work by NGOs, induction of policewomen in the force and the
setting up of all-women police stations to minimise chances of gender bias
in registration of such cases and so on. The results, however, have
not been too encouraging and the reasons many. The major and the foremost,
according to those directly involved in these exercises, has been the
society’s support for such acts. The concept of ghairat (or honour) is so
strongly embedded among people that they do not bother to even verify the
allegations. Farida Shaheed, Director
of Research at Shirkat Gah, tells TNS in such cases the people of a
particular locality get united and adversely affect the police
investigations. She says they have observed during field visits to the areas
of crime that hardly anybody dares to provide evidence due to society’s
pressure. Therefore, the foremost need is to prepare the society for a
change in mindset. This is something that
hampers the provision of justice as many judges have confirmed during talks
with their teams. How can a case proceed in the absence of witnesses? she
asks. Shaheed stresses the need
for the courts to try these cases with due diligence, as acquittals lead to
perpetuation for impunity with which honour crimes are committed. About the scope of her
organisation’s work, she says they operate at village level and target
small communities. The state must launch awareness campaigns at mass level
and involve mass media to get the message through. She says that a project
was started in Ustad Muhammad in Balochistan where five women were buried
alive. The lawmakers from the province termed the act in accordance with
their traditions and tried to ward off criticism. Today, she says, an
organisation with the name of Nisa is active there and people’s attitude
has changed considerably. “Instead of running away, the couples willing to
marry of their own will are happily contracting marriages. And, above all,
the locals have no problem with this.” According to Farida, the
realisation among them is that they do not need to fear or feel ashamed as
marriage of choice is supported both under the state law and in Islam as
well as other religions. She believes there is no
justification for calling brutal acts of violence as ‘honour crimes’.
The word honour should be removed forthwith. In fact, the right to own
women and being the custodian of their chastity is also assumed by men
themselves and with no religious sanctions. The same question is asked by a
young Sindhi girl in a piece of poetry by Attiya Dawood, a Sindhi activist
and poet, which follows below: “What is there to my
body?… Is it studded with diamonds or pearls? My brother’s eyes forever
follow me. My father’s gaze guards me all the time, stern, angry… Then
why do they make me labour in the fields? Why don’t they do all the work
by themselves? We, the women, work in the fields all day long, bear the heat
and the sun, sweat and toil and we tremble all day long, not knowing who may
cast a look upon us. We stand accused and condemned as kari and murdered.”
Zia Ahmed Awan, Advocate
and President of Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA), says he
hasn’t seen any positive results of the various awareness building
exercises on honour crimes carried out over the year. The reason, he cites,
is that the community-sanctioned form of violence cannot end till their
perpetrators — many of who are sitting in assemblies and cabinets — are
taken to task. Zia says many
parliamentarians are directly involved in honour crimes and the police and
other law enforcement paraphernalia come to their help. He says it’s good to
have laws but equally bad not to have the will to implement them. For
example, the apex court has declared jirgas illegal but the practice is
still going on and there are more than 100 FIRs registered in Sindh against
them. Most of these jirgas were held to decide punishments for honour
crimes. Not long ago, a DIG posted
in Sindh raided a jirga being headed by a parliamentarian who is a minister
in the sitting federal cabinet. The parliamentarian moved a privilege motion
in the parliament and the said official is still without a posting. According to Zia, the
jirga elders strictly warn the participants not to give evidence and in case
of non-compliance with the order get ready for a horrible punishment. Zia suggests the
government should develop a witness protection system, set examples by
punishing culprits, however influential, and incorporate chapters in
curricula against honour crimes to get desired results. “It’s very hard
to achieve them without creating deterrents.” Prof. Siddique Akbar, a
religious scholar based in Lahore, believes there’s a need to make people
realise they commit sins in the name of religion. The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)
condemned the act of infidels who used to bury their infant daughters alive,
he says. They did this to avert the remote possibility of their daughters
bringing shame to them. The mindset behind honour crimes is the same that
existed in those times, he adds.
be
victims of such crimes” — Samar
Minallah, human rights activist and documentary film-maker, on the customs
and traditions that justify honour crimes and the loopholes in the
lawsCustoms &
traditions vs the legal recourse In practical terms, the
justice system needs to be speedy, affordable and within the reach of the
ordinary citizen. Jirgas or panchayats are speedy, accessible and cheap and,
hence, widely depended on. In spite of the fact that the Sindh High Court,
Sukkur Bench, termed jirgas and panchayats illegal in 2004, they continued
to take place even in government circuit houses. However, the most
important step that needs to be taken is to educate the masses. Spread
awareness. Changing the mindset of the people would be the most important
step to reduce the gap between the customs/traditions and the legal
recourse. In my experience, even the foreign educated feudals have a
patriarchal mindset that is based on customs and traditions only. Again, the judges at every
level of judiciary come from a society that is patriarchal. Becoming a judge
does not change one’s mindset and thinking. The awareness raising,
sensitisation needs to take place at each and every level. Judges,
especially at the lower level of the judiciary, reinforce traditional
customary norms. The judiciary seems to not
interfere where it fears that the patriarchal structure will be challenged
or disrupted. This attitude perpetuates culturally sanctioned forms of
violence against women. And, the fact that there is no participation of
women or minorities has never been addressed. Lacunas in the existing laws The law is gender-specific
and rules out any possibility of violation of rights against men.
Culturally, men can be as much victims of honour-related crimes as women.
One of the most common forms of honour killings is where family wants to
target a boy or a girl in the name of honour for land and property. The fact we still call
such crimes ‘honour’ crime makes me uncomfortable. Although, the act has
replaced the word ‘honour killing’ with ‘honour crime’ it remains
questionable. Amending section 310-A of
the Pakistan Penal Code to make ‘badal-i-sulah’ or the custom of Swara,
a punishable offence, was indeed a marked amendment. Since, in majority of
‘honour crimes’ cases are settled by giving girls as compensation,
therefore, making this option an offence proved as a deterrent. In almost all the cases
the murderers go free and girls from the family pay the price for the crimes
of their father, brother or uncle. The government’s role in
curbing honour crimes The present government has
taken some positive steps — by introducing pro-women bills in the
Assembly. Despite the fact that there have been dark spots in instances
where Israrullah Zehri condoned the burying of girls in Balochishtan, Mir
Hazar Khan Bijarani presided over a jirga decreeing minor girls as
compensation, and the case of Tasleema Solangi who was attacked by dogs in
Sindh that became a victim of corruption and political manouverings, there
have been successes. The government’s stance
does have a trickle down effect in such instances. When Samia Sarwar was
murdered in Hina Jillani’s office there was silence by the majority of the
parliamentarians. Compared to that incident, I feel things have changed for
the better. Women as victims of honour crimes Women and girls have
always been the main victims because women in our society are seen and
considered as ‘property’. Notion of honour is deeply entrenched in our
social, political and economic fabric. Until, recently culturally sanctioned
forms of violence against women were considered as private matters. Now, we
see more and more cases being reported. That does not necessarily mean that
the cases are increasing. In the case of women, the
right to life is conditional to obeying certain customs and traditions. This
mindset is evident at each and every level of the society. Be it the police,
media or judiciary. Police mostly see themselves as custodians of tradition
and morality rather than impartial enforcers of law. Unless, a wide ranging
public awareness programme tailored for different stakeholder is designed
and implemented, the change will not come in the thinking of our society.
Gender sensitisation training to law enforcement and judicial personnel is
vital. Things will start to
change for good the day our society considers a woman as a human being and
not just a commodity. As told to Alefia T.
Hussain via email
The
resolution passed in Sindh Assembly is a step in the right direction, but… By
Farahnaz Zahidi Moazzam A Dec 21,
2011 news report said, “The members of the Sindh Assembly… unanimously
passed a resolution, urging the government to make honour killing (karo-kari)
a non-compoundable offence and to prosecute the killers under Section 302
(premeditated murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code.” The tribal
norms do not treat a karo (“black”, in Sindhi language) woman as the
victim, but deem her the perpetrator. Thus, the community always sides with
the man, who is allowed to go to any length, guilt-free, to redeem his lost
family “honour”. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2004, also known as
the ‘Honour Killings Act’ and promulgated after a lot of hard work and
effort on behalf of the civil society, was seen as a step in the right
direction. But it has shown some major lacunas which, in practicality,
render the law ineffectual. Maliha Zia
Lari, a practising lawyer, a researcher on human rights and the author of
the report, ‘Honour Killings in Pakistan and Compliance of Law’, is of
the opinion that the compromise and waiver (Qisas and Diyat) provisions
cause practical problems. “Mostly,
honour killing is an inter-family crime. If, say, a father kills a daughter
on the pretext of honour, the mother will claim to be the girl’s
‘wali’ and under the Diyat provision forgive the father. The murderer,
therefore, remains unpunished and free,” says Lari. While the
resolution may have been passed, not much has changed, and ground realities
remain the same due to a general lack of awareness and this heinous crime
still entrenched as a norm in the cultural sensibilities of parts of rural
Pakistan. Advocate Rubina Brohi who is Aurat Foundation’s Provincial
Coordinator for Sindh, feels that “previously honour killings were done
more openly, with pride and celebrations took place which included aerial
firings that announced it. Now, it is done in a more hidden manner because
of the laws. But the change is simply not enough.” According to
Brohi, her recent trips to rural Sindh in this regard confirmed that honour-killing
cases are often “crop-dependent.” In a lot of cases, the “accused”
man and woman are not even actually involved in an affair. Tribal enmity
sometimes leads to accusing an enemy of being involved with none other than
one’s own mother or sister. If the honour killing is carried out, the
enemy is killed in this premeditated murder and the mother or sister are
simply a price the “honourable” men are willing to pay. However, if
the accused is willing to buy out his life, he offers to pay in cash or by
giving away a plot of land, which is why we see that accusations against
honour killing victims increase in harvest season when everyone knows that
the accused will have the money to buy off his freedom from the clutches of
death. A big
percentage of cases go unreported due to pseudo-religious, patriarchal and
cultural practices. Stigma and social pressures force most female victims to
remain silent. On top of it, the law enforcement agencies are often found to
side with the community, not the victim. If the First Information Report
(FIR) is not made correctly, the whole case falls flat on its face. “We
need a resolution that clearly defines and rules the investigation
techniques used by the police,” says Lari. The upcoming
budget to be presented in the middle of 2012 would be the first after the
18th amendment. One hopes that a sustainable emphasis is seen in the budget
on the promulgation and enforcement of correct laws that uproot honour
killings. In addition, the government needs to take ownership of this cause. Lawyers
confirm that the courts in Sindh have been most forward with regards to
implementation of the Honour Killings Act, and many commendable judgments
have been given, strongly condemning this crime. But that is not enough.
Shelter
homes offer refuge to women who are not considered ‘honourable’ for
their families. But here too they aren’t necessarily safe By
Saadia Salahuddin When a woman leaves home
without the consent of her family it has to be the boldest step for her, in
our culture at least. She does so mostly under threat to her life or,
sometimes, because she is not allowed to marry of her own choice or is
subjected to physical and mental torture at the hands of her husband and
in-laws. She lands in a shelter home. Ironically, here she is no less
vulnerable, precisely for lack of proper security arrangements. A case in
point: the Nov 2011 murder of a girl within the very premises of Darul Amaan
in Chakwal. Farah Rubab, 30, was from
village Qutbaal, Tehsil Fateh Jhang, District Attock. She had filed a case
of divorce (khula) from her husband while her family opposed it. She left
home with her brother’s driver who drove her to Darul Amaan Chakwal where
she put up at till one day her brother Adnan Khan came to see her with a
servant. He had a 10-minute meeting with her, after which he asked his
servant for something. It was a pistol. The next moment Adnan had shot his
sister dead. This, in the presence of two peons who were hanging around the
place at the time. “Ten to twelve women
were killed in Chakwal alone, for honour, in the year 2011,” says Nosheen,
a women’s rights activist working with the NGO Bedari, based in the said
district. In another part of the
country, a poor woman landed at Darul Amaan Mianwali, when her own family
refused to have her. Reason: she had reported to the police that some
proclaimed offenders (POs) were after her while her husband was away for his
job. The police raided her husband’s house and killed a PO there. As a
result, her husband and her in-laws turned up against her. Her own family
also didn’t accept her back. She had no choice but to run off to a shelter
home. Interestingly, whereas the
idea of the existence of a shelter home for women is to send them back to
their families after a conflict is resolved, there is no assurance of a
life-long arrangement of this sort once they return home. Lahore’s Darul
Amaan received 1,852 women in 2011 while Faisalabad, the industrial city of
Punjab, put up 1,254 women the same year. A 32-year-old woman named Parveen
Sajawal from Okara refused to go with her family because she didn’t trust
them and fears for her life. Parveen left her
husband’s home because he used to beat her. Now her siblings visit her
frequently, together with her brother-in-law (husband’s brother), and try
to convince her to get back home but she is determined not to. The Lahore
Darul Amaan has a host of psychologists who Parveen has seen a couple of
times for counseling. The shelter home staff does not push women out to live
with their families. They leave the place at their own will. In January 2011, Amina,
25, from district Mianwali, who was married and pregnant at the time, came
to Darul Amaan Lahore where she had a miscarriage. She had been forced into
the marriage and it was known within her family that she wanted to marry
someone else. Once at Darul Amaan, Amina was cajoled by her treacherous
brothers into returning home where she was killed two months later. The
family was so influential that no FIR could be registered in her hometown.
Instead, her family placed the blame on the man the late Amina wanted to
marry. In a common Pakistani
society, girls are forced to stick with their husbands, however harsh, and
— moreover — to stay with their in-laws, no matter how tough and unfair.
Saira, in her 30s, managed to flee to Darul Amaan in Sahiwal when her family
didn’t let her marry the man she loved and filed a divorce case in the
court of law. Her family tried all possible ways to convince her out of the
place but didn’t succeed. Eventually, she was killed by her brothers and
cousins as she was returning from the court in police custody. She had won
the case but didn’t live to celebrate her victory. Lack of family and social
support often lead women into shelter homes and once they are there, a
stigma is attached to them. Life does not return to normal for them ever
again. The
writer can be reached at saadiasalahuddin@gmail.com
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