KARACHI, June 9: The British Council has launched an awareness campaign regarding Karo kari – a menace under which people, majority of them women, are killed by their close relatives, according to them, in the name of family honour.

The killings are carried out under the garb of socio-cultural traditions usually in the rural areas of Pakistan, particularly in the interior of Sindh and southern Punjab, and as these killings have social sanction so the matter is rarely reported to the police.

Even when reported the police sympathize with the culprits and when the case comes to the court the culprits usually escape full punishment of murder. In many instances, the murderer (usually a son, brother, father or husband) is forgiven by the heirs.

The British Council, with technical assistance from the Dastak Society for Communications, has produced an over 36-minute documentary “Shame – a tale of Karo kari” both in Urdu and English languages. The documentary, which is shown under the awareness campaign in the interior of Sindh and southern Punjab, says that ruled by customs and traditions this land is home to most unusual graveyards called Karian jo Qabristan (the graveyard of karo and kari).

These graveyards unlike most neither exude a sense of memory nor any loss. No tribute to the death not even a name could be seen on the graves. No living soul stirs to pay respect or offer prayer. Even in death they are denied the most rudimentary dignities or burial, a bath, a shroud, a prayer.

Buried in these graveyards are an unknown number of people, majority of them women, who were axed, shot or beaten to death in public view by their close relatives. They were killed for having blemished the honour of their men, the honour which is perceived to reside not within the men themselves but in the bodies of their women.

The dead in the name of honour are called Karo (blackened man) and Kari – blackened woman. Blackness here denotes immorality specifically in the sexual conduct of women.

The awareness campaign is funded by the Global Opportunity Fund of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the British Government and managed by the British Council.