Public sentiment is overwhelmingly negative regarding honour killings in Pakistan, marked by deep anger, sorrow, and a strong demand for justice and reform. Many commenters express their outrage towards both the cultural practices that facilitate such violence and the media's role in the exposure of victims. There is a pressing call for accountability and a reevaluation of societal norms, with numerous voices advocating for women's rights and personal autonomy.

Pakistani government

Media

Societal cultural institutions

Advocates for women's rights

People in rural areas don't even know how to recite kalma, how would they know how big of a sin is murdering an innocent person?

chulbull-dandy

It's pain my heart to see stories like these , we live in a cruel society. God help all those women who stand up for themselves.

Teaaddict_

Our society created a link between female's autonomy with the so called "honor" and then after that just treat her an object. People tend to say our society respect women but in reality most people don't think them as human being let alone respect them. For many people anyone that isn't their mother or sister is either an opportunity or Gali. They can catcall random girls on road but as someone passes a comment on their mother sister it's a matter of honor? Why did we linked honor with women?

Now I'm gonna say something controversial and it will trigger many people but if honor was linked with male autonomy a great amount of men would be killed in the name of so called honor.

They respect women only if she's according to their wishes and commands

drsandoz

ssjali

Rabia_Lover

The way you wrote it really made it so real. I always read about such stories but cannot fully process the madness behind them. But reading it with all the personal details.....is so sickening and disturbing. I cannot believe people can kill their own family member, their own blood, for something so benign and trivial. Jahil behaviour at its finest. May all those women rest in peace, and may God bless them forever in Jannah. They deserved better in this world.

[deleted]

Don't postmortems only happen if there is a need? Like in a murder case?

WisestAirBender

I have no words to say, other than we should continue to stay perpetually vigilant. But absolutely great writing, Anton Chekov type! Do  you a have a blog?

Improving_beginner

I’m at work, crying after reading this. I’ve seen so many girls, big dreams in their eyes, killed by their own father, brother and husband. Our society is messed up and women are afraid to talk against it, afraid to be killed, they just accept how it is and try to rely on their ‘god’ and hope for the best. I can’t blame them, It’s just sad

SofiaDaiki

OP, what's your role? The way you describe your experience, it sounds horrible. It must have affected your mental health and sanity. And yes, it shouldn't be taboo. People need to wake up and speak out like you just did.

aiysha_is_boring

Daur e jaahiliyat main log betiyon ko paida hote hi zinda zameen main dafan kardete the. Aur ab musalmaan betiyon ko thora sa paal ke bara kar ke ye kaam karte hain. Aur phir wohi log apne aap ko ummati kehte hain aur jannat ki umeed main rehte hain.

Quran doesn’t have anything regarding Honor killings. There’s no such thing. It’s a made up thing by illiterates. Also let me tell you something outside of Islam religion. There are thousands and thousands of cases in very well advanced countries where husbands/ wives/ uncles/ dads kill each other and the news doesn’t make it to the media.

So do you take a stand, OP? Do you have the guts to put it on the certificate? Or are poetic anonymous Reddit threads all you're willing to do? Because your job carries this enormous responsibility. Do not look the other way.

Miscsubs123

when I am not Pakistan, I’m Saudi Arabia

Summer-Scope

There have also been incidents where the older first wife found out that their husband of decades married a second much younger wife. The first wife goes over to the second wife's place and either outright murders the younger one or gets into a fight which leads to the death of the second wife. The death is made to look like some kitchen accident and the matter is hushed up.

BlandBiryani

Well, the scholars and clerics are unanimously declaring it unIslamic. So you pretty much have the opinions of well read knowledgeable experts of theology vs a mass of uneducated uncouth rednecks. 

LOHare

*Unfortunately, like many other religious issues, the issue of capital punishment has also been tainted by Pakistani culture, but elements taken from religion and mixed with cultural beliefs can never represent Islamic Laws.*

*Honor killing is a cultural tradition—free of any Islamic elements—that does persist in Pakistan. One of the reasons honor killing still thrives is because traditionally the so-called “honor” of the family is tied to the women, their chastity, their sexuality, and in order to control the family's honor, the family controls their women....*


http://muslimmatters.org/2014/06/01/stoning-pregnant-pakistani-woman-honor-killing-in-islam/

LIGHTNlNG

At least it's not 8 out of 10 anymore. That's progress. 

It's easy to dismiss these people as swarms of bigoted fools, but this nation is wracked with poverty, crime, corruption, and illiteracy, instability: breeding grounds for extremism. As a Pakistani, I don't think this is a deficiency with our culture or faith (though certainly we need to have conversations along those lines) so much as flimsy infrastructure. We need real political solutions that tackle the factors which exacerbate and create such problems.

K_M_H_

10 out of 10 Muslim redditors say honour killing of women is never justified and has no basis in Islam

People don't use Islam as an excuse to commit honour killings. I don't even think they rationally justify it in their head they just think that this is what society dictates I should do so I'll do it. You might probably find similar results in India because both countries share a lot of common culture. 

Kangaroo89

This article is posted again. I posted my comment in the previous post but I'll post it here again. Statistics is a powerful tool to draw a conclusion about this type of topics. However, we as readers need to understand a little about statistics. Anytime someone presents any statistical data to sway you, be sure to ask the following question:

* **What's the sample size?** Greater the sample size, the better. Of course, since we cannot survey everyone, we have come to the highest sample size given the budget. Usually anything less than 30 (magical number in statistics) can be disregarded. Thus, if they just surveyed 20 people to come to the conclusion that 8 out of 20 people believe honor killing is justified, their conclusion is garbage.
* **How were the samples chosen?** (*Very critical*) Were the samples *truly* random? In this case, you cannot survey a corner of Karachi, Pakistan at one afternoon and then present your data stating it is the opinion of all Pakistan. No, it is the opinion of few Karachis (Karachians?).
* **What's the margin of error?** With any statistics, you have some errors. Your sample size and your randomness play into this. I really don't understand why researchers don't publish their margin of error with their statistical data. With statistics you can manipulate the outcome to your desire however you want as long as you don't care about your margin of error. Now there's a standard for what's acceptable and what's not.

You and I have to be aware of these questions. I hope this helps you better understand any data presented to you. I have emailed the author of the article Neha Sahgal and asked her to provide me the answers to above questions. I will report back if hear anything from them.

syedur

Honor killing has nothing to do with religion, you can take your garbage somewhere else

Nanaya06

South Africa is the world's worst place for women. statistics say someone gets raped every four minutes, Only 66,196 incidents were reported to police in 2013 and their investigations led to only 4,500 convictions. A woman is killed by an intimate partner every eight hours in South Africa and that's an underestimation. [and that's just the tip of the iceberg.](http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/03/08/3_women_killed_each_day_in_south_africa_worlds_worst_gender_violence.html)

Since Chritianity is the dominant religion in South Africa by three quarter of the population. Should I post this in /r/Christianity ?  

Aiman_D

the article mentions killing for adultery and premarital sex not for marrying someone against their families wishes. Islam does indeed sentence someone to death for adultery (if there are enough witnesses) so why are people here calling their views wrong?  

donfanuci

A terrible thing and something that should be hated. If someone brings this up in some debate to debase your own faith be patient and explain it to them. If you don't you won't do justice to the victims or your own faith. 

Why is this posted here? Go post it in /r/Pakistan. 

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AutoModerator

So that's just a whole lot of nothing. Simply put: "Yes, we kill. And yes, we get away with it because it's a norm."

n3ov

So he blamed everyone else except the people who are committing such killings.

googo1

Please let’s be real for once and understand that this is not a provincial issue. It is a national issue and honor killings happen all across the country (even in Islamabad). The only reason the government is taking any action is because the video went viral. We do not talk about domestic violence or workplace harassment or honor killings. We use religion as a pretext to release our barbarism and then get away with it because no one wants to talk about the elephant in the room.
We are NOT an Islamic state by any definition l. People and leaders have not read Islam or implement Islam (they have inherited Islam). These extreme people; regardless of their social status, province or family will never sit down and have a real discussion about religion. Because guess what! They know nothing about religion!
May Allah forgive the victims

Longjumping-Back-499

All this answer reads is :

"We're tribals stuck 2 centuries ago, and we're actively encouraging terrorist orgs to murder based on ethnicity because 'honor'."

They can live in their tribal hellhole while the world progresses.

toheenezilalat

now if i suggest smth here reddit will surely ban me... so naahh

uchiha13579

I remember once reading a special issue of "Adabiyat" back in the early 00s which is a journal by the Pakistan Academy of Letters. This special issue had short stories from the then four provinces of Pakistan, and I remember the thing that stuck with me was how the theme of every story from KPK (then NWFP) and Balochistan revolved around "khaandaani dushmaniyan" and the feudals. For someone like me, born and raised in Rawalpindi and in a nuclear family, this was super strange: how people are embroiled in such fights across generations, how they take precedence over everything else and how the killings just do not stop. 

In my opinion, it is part of the greater tribal mindset: "we are independent, and we will take our own decisions through jirga." Such tribal mentality has always resisted the conventions and laws of the greater society, and politicians have generally let them be because of the immense voter-base that feudals have. There are lots of practices happening in those areas, and not just honor killings, but vani, marriage with Quran (naozobillah) to name a few. How do you change this without completely dismantling the feudal system?

Secure-Confidence-25

This Sardar system is the main issue in Baluchistan lack of progress!!! These sardars are residing in other big cities and do not let literacy and other basic needs reach common people

No_Conversation_8763

I fail to see the point of this post. So this guy in a lot of words say nothing much at all

slytherinight

Are you sure it is not a fake account? The amount of indian bots and indians impersonating is huge. Its an industry.

Syyrus

Sounds like someone is afraid of powerful nondescript  people. They hypothesize that this is the gut wrenching reality that they tolerate to keep their head down. Seems believable, certainly seems like it undermines the authority of the government and aligns with anecdotes of connected people being untouchable. This may be AI generated karna farming attempt but my own biases has me saying yup i believe it, never trusted people that say they're ready to kill for you and can now assume that's actually a socially acceptable ask in the community lmfao

uptokesforall

Why is everyone keen on turning this into a provincial war?

Fearless_Profile_481

this has been happening for centuries and our state is well aware of it and so was this Police Station where incident happened, reportedly couple of months ago but they didn't take action,bcz state doesn't care and they're cowards

thE-petrichoroN

Yeah jirgas and sardar do kinda have a significant influence in balochistan, and people follow them out of the fear of being excommunicated. But that doesnt mean that people involved also are not willing, they absolutely are.

Soljak_s

1) Societal Norm
2) Illiteracy 
3) Banana Governance
4) No implications

2, 3, 4 go hand in hand after which it is generally batted off by the society. These matters can be single-handedly swept away by the government. Instead we saw how Shahzain Bhugti came up with ridiculous claims.

The lives of citizens don't matter anymore. The way she was killed would have led any half-decent leadership to tremble with fear, on the backlash alone.

awaiskorai

The man and the woman in that video were both married but to different people. Both had children but with different people. So, it was an extra marital affair (allegedly). However, nothing justifies the brutality they faced. 


Source: https://youtu.be/r2b2P-qu83Q?si=8W0LLYXPscA-gjrR

Ok-Sand-1411

Another thing is that the video is about one and a half years old, I wonder why it resurfaced now?

Aggravating-Flan2482

Your sample set here is very skewed, so therefore you probably aren't going to get a representative answer based on reality.  You're going to get a skewed perspective from "the majoirty of middle-class [redditors who] are above such acts."  

Now with that preamble out of the way: In my personal experience, living in an urban environment, I rarely hear about honor killings.  In fact it is more common for me ot hear about instances in the UK than here in Pakistan.

In fairness that could be due to lax reporting and investigating standards in the rural areas here (where it seems the majority of these cases happen).  Whereas murder of any sort is front page news in the UK.

So I haven't looked at any data so I can't tell you the actual rates of honor killings.  I can't tell you about the number of honor killings that happen in cities vs rural areas.  

All I can say is that in my interaction with people, I have never heard of an instance of an honor killing.  Sure occasionally I'll read of a case in the paper (let's say once every 4 months and that's being very generous) but in my daily life it doesn't even pop up as an issue.

Then again, as you prefaced, I am geographically and socio-economically far enough removed from this atrocity, that it doesn't affect me regularly.  

Maybe there's a Pew study or Gallup poll that can give you more a more accurate picture.  

Sorry I really wasn't much help

guyfrompakistan

I make sure to honorably kill a couple of innocent women at least once a week. That's how it goes in Pakistan, brah. ^(I'm just joking, pls don't hurt me Punjab police)

LostMyPasswordNewAcc

Yes... and no.

Honour killing is such a vague word!

----

Any time a family member kills another out of hurt pride, that's honour killing.

Now murder is rather uncommon, I mean you don't see bodies left right and center, this is not war.

And there are many reasons why a family member may kill another, say due to property issues, inheritance issues, marriage issues etc.

Honour killing is when a person feels he will not be able to face society due to the choices made by another, and thus wishes to kill them to cleanse themselves.

----

Out of the deaths in Pakistan, how many are murder?

Out of those, how many are amongst family members?

And amongst those how many are due to honour based, rather than other reasons?

----

Clearly, as a subset of whole, it's a small number. But still, it's a very prevalent issue nonetheless.

And the biggest problem is reporting. Law is notorious here, crime is often not reported, especially if it's a non-monetary crime (rape/murder etc)

Statistics are hard to get.

869 women were killed in 2013 in the name of honour according to HRCP. The country's population is roughly 200 million (last census was in 1998, so it's an estimate).

Source: http://www.hrcp-web.org/hrcpweb/report14/AR2013.pdf

squarerootof-1

[A paper on prevalence of honour killings in Pakistan.](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19286837)

shannondoah

I will add to what has already been said and say that most instances of 'honor killing' actually concern cases where there are disputes regarding inheritance. In classical sharia law there is no such concept of honor killing. This is a construct we have built upon customs and looking at the SUPPOSED anti feminist and misogynistic laws in Islam.
Honor killing is generally used as an excuse because the perpetrators are family members and as homicide is treated as a dispute against a person the family has the unique option of Afw (pardon) under which not only can they pardon the perpetrator but also refuse to initiate proceedings against him/her.
(Interestingly this option is used by the male heirs of the deceased so it is more often than not that the perpetrator of a crime, brothers or fathers, forgive themselves for killing a sister or daughter)
Sources; Islamic Law student


the-odd-one

I wouldn't mind looking at statistical figures on this. But personally, I don't believe it is that common. And these people are culturally motivated, as evidence from the consistent honor killings in India and Bangladesh too. I also read the post on r/worldnews and I ignored it because everytime Pakistan is mentioned there, it's about something negative. Not to say that people are just standing in line to present there bias, but larger groups do tend to get more sensationalistic with time.

drop180

Indian here!

Since you asked **"how common are these"**, I would say not very common.

[This](http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/03/22/202385.html) shows that there were about 1000 such acts in 2011. In a country of 180M, this is very small number.

But the disturbing trend is they were increasing from about 800 in 2010. And I think they may have increased more since then because of recent economic/religious tensions there.

To give unbiased stats, since I'm an Indian and most people might not believe me, I'll give you stats of [India too. And UK too.](http://hbv-awareness.com/statistics-data/) 

To compare, if population of pakistan were same as India, it would have 1261/186=6.779 times more killings, i.e 6779 vs india's 1000 (and UK would have around 236 cases).

Now comes the religion. I was not able to find any data on pakistan or india specifically. But according to [this](http://www.meforum.org/2646/worldwide-trends-in-honor-killings)*, 91% of cases happen in muslims familes.

*Relevant text

&gt;*"Although Sikhs and Hindus do sometimes commit such murders, honor killings, both worldwide and in the West, are mainly Muslim-on-Muslim crimes.* ***In this study, worldwide, 91 percent of perpetrators were Muslims. In North America, most killers (84 percent) were Muslims, with only a few Sikhs and even fewer Hindus perpetrating honor killings; in Europe, Muslims comprised an even larger majority at 96 percent while Sikhs were a tiny percentage.*** *In Muslim countries, obviously almost all the perpetrators were Muslims. With only two exceptions, the victims were all members of the same religious group as their murderers.*
&gt;
&gt;*In the West, 76 individuals or groups of multiple perpetrators killed one hundred people. Of these perpetrators, 37 percent came from Pakistan; 17 percent were of Iraqi origin while Turks and Afghans made up 12 and 11 percent, respectively. The remainder, just under a quarter in all, came from Albania, Algeria, Bosnia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Guyana, India, Iran, Morocco, and the West Bank.*

6c6f6c6775617264

Honour killing is an American media buzzword they use to make Pakis look bad. It's a political word used to rile the masses against 'savagery' of Muslims and Pakis in general. Bomb blasts go off, terrorism, drone strikes, you never hear of that. Spread a buzzword among the dumb masses and it is news.

Don't believe the hype.

SirHumanoid

Very common. So many probably go unreported as well.

REPORTED.

Key point is, in the US, it's very hard to vanish a person from the face of the earth... in Pakistan it's very hard to discover the person existed in the first place.

Also, consider population size, Pakistan has 200 million people, the US has 350 million people. Obviously a bigger population would have more results.

Thirdly, consider what happens AFTER the incident... in pakistan they get forgiven and go scot free, in the US, they go to jail and get restraining orders.

----

This post is just making a bad point worse.

That 943 needs to be 0 though. Perceived izzat and anah of the family are stupid concepts.

greenvox

This is ridiculous. Shame on OP for trying to dampen the honour killing issue. 



lalaaaland123

Honor killings doesn't count for all domestic abuse deaths in Pakistan. 

Pakistan reporting isn't as accurate of a representation as the USA. Since many deaths in villages and small towns would even go unreported. 

Your comparison is quite literally fails the first critical thinking test. 

Honour killing isn't being murdered by 'men they knew'. 'Men they knew' will kill for property, domestic arguments, love affairs outside of marriage. We don't know how many of these are manslaughters. Relatives don't kill in America for running away with a boy or being a model. Plus the major difference is that here society feels the murder is justified. 

mo_rar

Keep in mind that the US has a larger population and better law enforcement (which means better crime statistics). 

jabbasmmahutt

Putting things in perspective for you:

Nobody cares. Try and fix things in Pakistan instead of comparing stats with other countries. 943 is a **big** number. 943 families lost hope. 943 families were torn apart. 943 families should not have seen this reality but, **they did**. Pakistan ko behtar bananay ko koshish karo. There is no need to compare such banal stats just to one up a country. 

nehyan26

Is this some sort of thing to make yourself feel better? I find this the weirdest thing Pakistanis (and others in that part Of the world do) One is too many. No amount is acceptable, that should be the goal. 

IHateTheLaw666

soccertown

This whole thread is an embarrassment. For shame.

----

Just to give a headsup, in the documentary that sparked this whole stupid thread... a women marries a man of her free will. Her father and uncle attempt to kill her, attack her and throw her body in to the river for dead.

Luckily she survives.

The father and uncle are arrested, and they confess to the crime proudly, on camera.

The woman is put under pressure to forgive them, and she buckles, because she is deemed to be equally culpable by the panchayat, by marrying without permission.

The father and uncle are released... and they (again on camera) are happy, and regret free, and in fact highlight how no other woman in their family would dare do something like this, because of the example set by them. The consequences are evident.


----

TL;DW: Murderers confess on camera and are still free.

This apparently is an embarrassment for us... not the criminal going free bit, but the fact that the world knows of this via a documentary.

Naak katwa di documentary wali ne.

Educated and urban dwelling people killing their ex'es because of jealousy or cheating is worse than uneducated and backward persons doing it in South Asia IMO.

_KzQ_

well this ends the debate. ok guys we can kill about 500 more women in the name of honor because apparently our homicide rate is less than US. 

Ace217Terror

The point that this post is trying to make is 'hey look they're bad too so chill'.

Screw you.

ASKnASK

He isn't justifying anything, if you can't make proper arguments then quit unloading your closet inferiority complex onto him, please.

"Intimate partner homicide" - by the way, is an example of a term that's racially neutral. Note how it's not called "honour killing". 

"Domestic violence" committed by men is due to "patriarchal honour". Just because it's not termed as an "honour killing" by the perpetuators does not mean and should not mean that it's not an "honour killing". 

I'll let a smart young Pakistani-American woman explain her thoughts on "honor killing" not being a "racially neutral" term:

https://twitter.com/ayeshaasiddiqi/status/701248790225936384

https://twitter.com/ayeshaasiddiqi/status/704152954283139073

https://twitter.com/ayeshaasiddiqi/status/701256960944041987





Further reading:

50 facts on domestic violence: http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/2193904

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5971fcf6e4b09e5f6cceba87/amp

http://m.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/domestic-violence-statistics_n_5959776



Batman_Lambo

Thirteen arrests were made following a viral video depicting a brutal honour killing in Pakistan, reigniting public outrage and calls for reform.

Honour Killings in Pakistan

Why This Matters

Public Sentiment Summary

Highlighted Comments

Parties Involved

What the people want