Pakistan: To be a woman is a sorry thing

It seems that being a woman is fast turning into a curse in Pakistan. In another heartbreaking case, an 18-year-old girl has been doused with petrol and set on fire in a village in Toba Tek Singh, Punjab, by a jilted young man who was denied her hand in marriage. Storming into her house while her parents were away on Saturday, he burned her so horrifically that she died before reaching the hospital. While this is not a crime of ‘honour killing’ per se as the girl was murdered because of a rejected man’s ego, it can be classified in the same league because it underscores the fact that women are thought to be no more than male property to be bartered, oppressed and done with as pleased. If he could not marry her, he made sure that no one else would either. This murder comes just days after a particularly heinous honour killing in which a couple were beheaded by the girl’s family for marrying without their consent. A public beheading in Sialkot, a young pregnant woman stoned to death outside the busy Lahore High Court (LHC) and this most recent incident are just the tip of the iceberg. It is terrifying the speed with which these crimes are increasing in Pakistan — or maybe the media has decided to become more sensitive to the issue and is reporting honour crimes more diligently. Even the international community is watching in horror the sorry situation of our women, going so far as to label us with having an “honour killing epidemic”.

With this spike in honour deaths, are we seeing a corresponding response by our government and law enforcement agencies? Not in the least. The government seems to have completely absolved itself of all responsibility in protecting its girls and women. The reason is probably two-fold: allowance of the use of the Qisas and Diyat laws, in which murder can be settled outside the courts with the payment of ‘blood money’, and the fact that such crimes are considered ‘family matters’. This mindset permeates the police force also, which does not bother to investigate these crimes, hardly ever bringing the perpetrators to book. Hence, honour crimes go unpunished in Pakistan leading to greater impunity for other men to commit such atrocities against the women under their sway. Nothing is being done to even educate society against this menace due to which our sisters, mothers and daughters are being killed on what appears to be a daily basis. The government needs to step up and take note of the worrying statistics on honour crime and do away with the use of discriminatory laws, which enable murderers to get off scot-free without fear of punishment. We really are in the midst of an epidemic but no one seems to be willing to find a cure.