December 8, 2005

The parameters of honour killings that we witness today are hard to define because it is interwoven into various social, political, communal and legal problems, writes M. Fahad Faruqui

The British Council of Pakistan recently held a programme on the widely spread curse of murder in the name of so-called honour. The aim was to educate the audience by first identifying the ‘threats and trends’ of honour killings and offer a panoramic image of the problems that have arisen in various countries. The three-day international conference, held at a local hotel from November 24-26, focused on the nature and form of honour crimes in Pakistan — which has become a social epidemic.

The honour killings conference consisted of speakers including professors, politicians, jurists, doctors, journalists, police officers and social-workers tried to bring the issue to the limelight. In the opening speech Marcus Gilbert, director of British Council Karachi, explicated his keenness to curb the increasing trend of honour related crimes. He hoped that the conference would “act as a catalyst for spreading awareness” throughout all affected regions. This phenomenon prevails not only in rural Pakistan but also has an enormous presence in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Jordan, Turkey and even the UK.

Honour related incidents are centred predominantly around the female gender and take different forms ranging from honour killings to rape, domestic violence, female infanticide, dowry related crimes, acid attacks, female genital mutilation, forced abortions and forced marriage. Over the space of three days, these multi-dimensional atrocities towards the ill-fated female gender emerged with a screaming silence. Facts of the cases coupled with the honour killing documentary called ‘Shame’ shook the audience on an emotional level.

The presenters offered their analysis of the problem but even after numerous Q & A sessions it was evident that it is not easy to lynchpin the root causes of the problem –– and certainly not easy to come up with hard and fast solutions for it either.

Honour crimes depict the psyche of the patriarchal culture where guardians of the female member tend to dictate their terms and conditions. Perhaps there is no exaggeration in lawyer and one of the speakers on the occasion, Hina Jilani’s generalization that “the right to life of women in Pakistan is conditional on their obeying social norms and traditions.” A speaker from Bangladesh, Professor Jahanara Haq, added that it is also due to the “inferior socio-economic status of women.” Perhaps, one can say that honour issues are based upon the vague concept of the egocentric ‘I’ – which is as old as human nature itself.

Hence, Dr Hameeda Khoro rightly suggested that it is not possible to impute honour crimes to a particular geographical location or ethnicity. If we begin to write the history of the atrocities on the premise of honour against humans in general and women in particular we could inscribe voluminous episodes dating back to pre-Islamic jahilliya and ancient Rome.

The parameters of honour killings that we witness today, are hard to define because it is interwoven into various social, political, communal, and legal problems. One mustn’t forget that these crimes are dominant in areas where the average household spending is under one dollar a day. Economic frustrations and lack of education has hyped the nature of deviance.

In some parts of Pakistan honour killing is referred to as karo kari, which literally means black-man and black-woman –– the sinners who indulged in illicit relationship. Karo kari is a pseudonym for crime d’honneur (or murder of passion) is sympathized in the Napoleonic code due to the mitigating circumstances in which the incident takes place. Such cases held before 1975 were acquitted in the French courts for similar reasons.

In Pakistan, the duality of karo kari cases is the primary reason of concern. In most cases, the kari is found brutally murdered, mutilated or burned with acid; whereas, the karo is nowhere to be found. The statistics of honour killings of women are double –– and in some years triple than that of men.

Moreover, karo kari incidents are based not on hard facts but more on suspicion of illicit relationship, or indeed they may simply be manufactured for reasons such as material gain or longstanding tribal feuds. More often than not, honour killings result from immense pressure from neighbours and extended family to kill the ‘shameless creature’. Socrates was not the only one who was indicted for ‘corrupting the youth’ because in Pakistan, in the third millennium, women are deprived of life for similar nonsensical reasons.

In Professor Aytekin Sir’s survey on Honour Killings in Turkey he mentioned an incident where a young girl, called Berivan, was killed by her brothers because she had a ‘cheerful’ attitude towards people, which provoked stories of her character perhaps being somewhat loose.

“In an incident that took place in Karachi,” said Justice Nasir Zahid in a panel discussion, “family members including the mother were forced to kill the daughter by her neighbours because she was away from home for two days.” In both cases, the alleged sinners had to be prosecuted in the name of honour.

Such trends are barbaric and exceedingly problematic because of the social-psyche that raises the criminals on a pedestal for carrying out the necessary act in order to protect honour.

Sheema Kirmani performed a play on the first day of the conference in which she emphasized the heinousness of taking an innocent life in a ‘fit of fury’. She dramatized incidents from real cases but on a lighter note she performed a story from The Arabian Nights: Tales from a Thousand and One Nights where the husband killed his wife on suspicion.

Her performance was a pun on the chauvinistic mindset that heralds the defilement of the female gender. The normative role of the man in a patriarchal system bucks the notion of ownership of women hence any displeasure from her calls for punitive action to correct her. And if she continues to disrespect the word of the laurel guardian then she must suffer the consequences.

As per the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) 4,101 honour killing victims were estimated between the year 2000 and 2004 of which 3,451 were taken to the courts. But the perpetrators in nearly half of those cases walked scot-free after compensating the family with a mediocre sum.

Lawyers and NGOs’ in the conference suggested amendment to the constitution. In Pakistan, honour killings are not crimes against the state. The aggrieved party can seek an eye for an eye settlement under the Qisas law. But, since retribution plays a prominent role in the Islamic legal code, the aggrieved party has the option of forgiving the accused in return of compensation. Although, the right of forgiveness is in the hands of the guardians [or wali] of the victims, the issue that surfaces from this is hard to curtail. It is evident from the statistics that the majority of perpetrators in honour killings are family members –– hence the guardians of the victims and the perpetrators overlap.

Journalists from upper Sindh broadened the horizons of this problem by unveiling the nature of manufactured honour killings and jirga proceedings. They illuminated that giving away a woman in marriage to the accuser as compensation is a common practice. How? In a myriad of manufactured honour killing cases, a brother may scheme to kill his sister so that he can accuse the family member of the woman he desires and entrap her in marriage.

Such cases are taken to jirgas instead of courts because it offers a platform to dictate the desired terms and conditions. The punishment is often left to the whims of the feudal lord who decides the cases and favours the accuser not because their honour is jeopardized but because they have an understanding to share a percentage of the compensation.

In conclusion, the panel suggested that the rule of law must prevail and there should be an annihilation of the jirga system, courts should be instructed and armed with the will to deal with honour killings with an iron fist, a bill must be passed to sensitize the judges and the law enforcement agency. Additional to all this, preventive measures should be taken, such as opening of rehabilitation centres, so that women who manage to flee these situations can receive the support and shelter they need.

“Where shall we go from here and what is the solution” was a question that recurred in the conference with high frequency. Most speakers rightly placed the burden of taking it further on to the person asking the question.

Surely, when one has been made aware of a social evil then a good Samaritan must act and join hands with those who are working on the cause. The District Judge, Marilyn Morington, was clear in her mind about the fact that change doesn’t come overnight, pragmatic measures must be taken towards the desired goals before it starts to bear fruits. It seems, therefore, that this cause requires arduous struggle and persistence before it is eradicated from our societies.

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