A protest in the southern Pakistani seaport city of Karachi condemns violence against women. (file photo)
A spate of deaths of women in northwestern Pakistan has put the spotlight on so-called honor killings in the South Asian country.
Each year, hundreds of women and girls are killed in Pakistan, often by relatives who say they are protecting the family's honor.
Despite stricter laws and public outrage in the Muslim-majority country, human rights groups say such killings continue.
In the latest case, police said they have charged a man for murdering his 18-year-old daughter on the orders of a jirga, or tribal council, because she had appeared in a photo with unrelated men on social media.
Police said three others -- the victim's uncle and two cousins -- were arrested on November 29 in Kolai-Palas, a remote district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province.
The victim has been identified as Reema Bibi, whom police say was shot dead by her father in the family home on November 24, soon after photos of her with a woman and two men appeared on social media.
Pakistani women protest against violence against women. (file photo)
Public images of women are considered taboo in deeply conservative rural areas of Pakistan. Police have said the photos of Bibi were manipulated.
Noor Mohammad, a police official in Kolai-Palas, told RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal that the other woman and one of the two men in the photos were under police protection. The whereabouts of the other man in the images was unknown.
In another case, police said four people were killed on November 28 in the district of Dera Ismail Khan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Police said a man killed his wife following a marital dispute. In retaliation, the victim's brother killed the husband's parents and young sister on the same day, police said.
"This is very cruel and is done in the name of terrible local customs," Mufti Hafizullah Sabri, a local religious leader, told Radio Mashaal. "This is the result of deep-seated ignorance."
'Harrowing Reminder'
Human rights group say the incidents are just the latest cases of honor killings in Pakistan, where women have been slain for eloping with men, committing adultery, or even appearing in online videos and photographs.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) documented at least 384 cases of such killings in 2022 alone, including 103 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The cases are a "harrowing reminder that violence against women remains deeply accepted in Pakistan," Asad Iqbal Butt, the head of the HRCP, said in a November 29 statement.
A 2016 amendment to the criminal law in Pakistan defined "murder committed in the name of honor" as a specific crime with stiffer penalties than homicide, including the death penalty or life in imprisonment.
But rights groups say the stricter laws have failed to curb the number of killings.
"While repeated so-called 'honor killings' have resulted in legislative amendments and societal outrage in the country, they remain unabated," Nadia Rahman of Amnesty International said in a November 30 statement. "It is not enough to arrest people after such attacks take place. The authorities must end impunity for violence and abolish so-called village and tribal councils that prescribe such horrific crimes."
In 2019, Pakistan's Supreme Court declared tribal councils illegal because they violated the constitution and Islamabad's international commitments to protect human rights and end gender discrimination.
But Rahman said the Pakistani authorities have failed to "curb the extra-legal power of jirgas or tribal councils to run parallel legal systems," in a move she said has perpetuated "patriarchal violence with impunity."
'Blood' Money
Kainat Kakakhel, a Pakistani lawyer, said the amended law aimed at curbing honor killings is not being fully enforced.
Under the law, a person convicted of "murder committed in the name of honor" cannot be pardoned by the victim's family, which is permitted under Islamic law.
"[But] often, the police reports in honor killing cases are registered as murder cases, which opens the door to reconciliation, which is a major flaw," Kakakhel told Radio Mashaal.
Under Pakistani law, the Islamic concept of diyat, which allows a victim's family to forgive a murderer in exchange for financial compensation, or so-called blood money, from the perpetrator's family.
High-Profile Cases
In one of the most high-profile cases in Pakistan in recent years, a tribal council in Kolai-Palas in 2011 ordered the deaths of four men and two women after a homemade video appeared to show unrelated men and women fraternizing at a wedding.
In 2013, three of the men -- all brothers -- were killed by the family members of the two women, according to the police. A fourth brother, Afzal Kohistani, was killed in 2019 after leading a yearslong campaign against honor killings in Pakistan.
In 2017, a provincial court had overturned the murder convictions against the six men from the women's families.
Qandeel Baloch is one of the most well-known victims of honor killings in Pakistan. (file photo)
In another prominent case, a man was convicted of murdering his celebrity sister in 2016.
Muhammad Waseem was found guilty of strangling to death Qandeel Baloch, a controversial social media star who was dubbed the Kim Kardashian of Pakistan.
Waseem had publicly said he had no remorse for killing his 26-year-old sister over her "intolerable" behavior, after she posted racy pictures of herself with a Muslim cleric.
Waseem, 38, was sentenced to life in prison. But in February 2022 -- after spending six years in prison -- he was freed after his mother pardoned him.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty © 2024 RFE/RL, Inc. All Rights Reserved.