Violence against women is not confined to our country alone but its prevalence is evident across the world. Violence against women is a phenomenon that takes several identifiable forms and cuts across national, ethnic and social backgrounds. In Pakistan certain social precedents, call them customs or traditions justify acts of torture, violence and murder infused with a sense of righteous pride. The worst of such customs is that of so-called ‘honour’ killings. In Baluchistan, the act of ‘honour’ killings is termed siyahkari, karo kari in Sindh, in NWFP tor tora, and kala kali in the Punjab.
In all four provinces of our country there are areas where this custom persists in its worst forms even today. On the accusation of illicit relations, women and men are murdered, although women form the majority of victims. The primary reaction to these acts is silence. Majority of the population consider such actions justifiable.
Shirkat Gah wants to shed some more light on what this issue entails and why it continues to persist. We also want to determine the type of action that can most effectively be initiated against it. We hope that by the end of this seminar some recommendations and suggestions will emerge that can provide further guidance in this regard.
Introduction
Violence against women is not confined to our country alone but its prevalence is evident across the world. Violence against women is a phenomenon that takes several identifiable forms and cuts across national, ethnic and social backgrounds. In Pakistan certain social precedents, call them customs or traditions justify acts of torture, violence and murder infused with a sense of righteous pride. The worst of such customs is that of so-called ‘honour’ killings. In Baluchistan, the act of ‘honour’ killings is termed siyahkari, karo kari in Sindh, in NWFP tor tora, and kala kali in the Punjab.
In all four provinces of our country there are areas where this custom persists in its worst forms even today. On the accusation of illicit relations, women and men are murdered, although women form the majority of victims. The primary reaction to these acts is silence. Majority of the population consider such actions justifiable.
Shirkat Gah wants to shed some more light on what this issue entails and why it continues to persist. We also want to determine the type of action that can most effectively be initiated against it. We hope that by the end of this seminar some recommendations and suggestions will emerge that can provide further guidance in this regard.
It is a source of great pride for us that Dr. Attiya Inayatullah, the Federal Minister for Women and Special Education, is the chief guest for this event. Our panelists include the honourable Nasir Aslam Zahid, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and Syed Iqbal Haider, who is also a former senator. Mr. Haider is amongst the few senators who proposed and backed a resolution against ‘honour’ killings in the Senate. We also have Ms. Neelam Hussain on our panel. Ms. Hussain is associated with Simorgh (a women’s organization), she is deeply involved in work on human rights, particularly women’s rights issues. A Senior Superintendent Police, Ghulam Nabi Memon, was supposed to attend but he excused himself saying that he would send someone else from the department;
however, we have since been unable to reach them.
Shirkat Gah’s programme ‘Women, Law and Status’ is operational in three provinces of Pakistan. Part of this programme requires direct involvement with community based organizations. The issue of karo kari is very serious in parts of the Sindh where our CBOs are working. It was due to their specific identification of the issue and insistence that Shirkat Gah began research on the subject. The purpose of the research is to determine the inherent dynamics and underlying realities tied to the incidents of ‘honour’ killings. We wanted to find out the real motives behind such occurrences and whether illicit relations were the foremost cause or mere suspicion considered reason enough for committing such an act. Conversely, were these only excuses while the real motivating factors were greed of acquiring land, or avoiding punishment for another murder by declaring here is no ‘honour’ in killing a woman a kari and murdering her to obtain customary endorsement for their actions. We wanted to find out if all these things really do happen? One purpose of the research was to clarify misperceptions and gather information about the prevalence of this custom in Sindh and another two provinces – Punjab and NWFP.
Our research did unearth various aspects and issues concerning the subject that had not been evident before. For example, within Rajanpur in the Punjab, very similar incidents to those in Sindh are taking place under the name of kala kali. Then we further broadened the geographic scope of our research to find out if similar occurrences were evident in NWFP. The research eventually took place in three tehsils of district Larkana in Sindh, three tehsils of Rajanpur district in the Punjab and in Mardan, Swabi, Peshawar and Malakand Agency in NWFP. We solicited people’s opinion on the subject and asked them about its origin and what they considered to be feasible means for its eradication since it is an act that is clearly illegal and there is no law within our constitution that could possibly lend it any support.
Organizing the seminar on this particular day is due to its concurrence with the International Day against Violence Against Women that is part of a chain of activities spanning over a period of sixteen days, from 25th November to 10th December, protesting violence against women.
Farida Shaheed
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This Special Bulletin focuses on the custom of honour killing in Pakistan, based on a research carried out by Rabia Ali in the province of Sindh in 2001.