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"ASIAN WOMEN EXPOSED TO VIOLENCE"
by ROLAND-PIERRE PARINGAUX
Special correspondent.
"Kitchen accidents" in which women are set on fire are no rarity in Pakistan.
Shahnaz Bokhari, chair of the Pakistan Progressive Women's Association, has counted over
4,000 cases of this type since 1994 in the three large hospitals of Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
She shows us photographs of the burned bodies of Pakistani women every bit as horrific
as the pictures of the young Indian women in Bangalore's Victoria Hospital described in
the accompanying article. But in Pakistan dowries and money are not the issue. The Human
Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) reports that at least 80% of Pakistani women are
victims of male aggression. The burning of women is part of a widespread pattern of everyday
violence.
The Islamic Republic harbours a special category of violence against women known as
"crimes of honour". The expression is reminiscent of other societies that used to or
still do take a lenient view of crimes committed in response to adultery or in pursuit
of vendettas (1). But the sheer scale of the phenomenon in Pakistan makes it a case apart.
Crimes of honour are a pre-Islamic practice. They have no real basis in religion but are
encouraged by the rise of religious fundamentalism of which women are the prime victims.
The problem of widespread impunity is essentially cultural and social. Crimes of honour
are an archaic custom deeply rooted in the tribal societies of Baluchistan and the Northwest
Frontier Provinces, as well as those of Punjab and Sindh, where they are known as karo kari (2)
killings.
In these rigidly patriarchal communities, wives, daughters, sisters and mothers are killed
for the least sexual indiscretion and upon the slightest suspicion of adultery. The local
press in Lahore, Peshawar and Islamabad provides many examples. In January this year two
brothers in the village of Soom Mori shot and killed a young man whom they had forbidden
to walk past their house and talk to their sister. Then they murdered the sister. In Toba
Tek Singh a young man killed his sister and explained to the police that he suspected her
of "illicit relations" (the consecrated phrase) with a man in the village. She had "taken
no notice" of his reprimands.
A newspaper describes the "savagery" of an office clerk in Mandi Bahudin who hacked his
wife and five of their children to death with an axe. The remaining two are in hospital
in a desperate condition. The murderer "had doubts about his wife's behaviour." Elsewhere
two teenagers were found bathing nude in a river. Accused by a villager of having sexual
relations, they were publicly executed by their families, acting in concert. In another
village a young women was killed by her brother after admitting to having had pre-marital
sex with her own husband.
In all these cases the woman's body is treated as a repository of the family honour.
By committing adultery she disrupts the social order. Her body may be bought, sold or
exchanged, but only by decision of a man. If she flouts this rule, or is even suspected
of doing so, she is punished. And punishment often means death. The testimony of the
accused is of no importance. A mere allegation of illicit sexual relations is considered
an intolerable stain on the honour of the whole family, especially its male members. So
they are entitled to take justice into their own hands.
One of Amnesty International's many reports on the subject quotes a human rights worker
as saying "the distinction between a woman being guilty and a woman being alleged to be
guilty of illicit sex is irrelevant. What impacts on the man's honour is the public
perception, the belief in her infidelity. It is this which blackens honour and for which
she is killed ... It is not the truth that honour is about, but public perception of
honour" (3). Against this background, the oft-repeated story of the man who dreams
his wife is being unfaithful to him, then wakes up and stabs her to death, no longer
has the power to shock. Executions are typically carried out by the victim's brothers,
husband or uncles. They may be performed in public, by axe or by gun, depending on the
region, and the murderer often gets away.
The scale of the problem is difficult to measure. Last year Dr Shaheen Sardar Ali, chair
of the National Commission on the Status of Women, estimated that at least three women a
day were victims of honour killings. Over 1,000 such murders were recorded in 1999, but
in tribal areas many go unreported. According to HRCP member Tanveer Jahan, the Lahore
press reports a case a day in Punjab province alone. He estimates that as 10% of the
figure for the country as a whole, giving a total of thousands of victims a year. But
the grisly calculation is not so simple, since honour killings are not only a response to
sexual relations. Women are also killed for refusing arranged marriages or seeking a divorce.
The case of Samia Sarwar is a notorious example.
To honour and obey
Human rights lawyer Hina Jilani, co-founder of Pakistan's first all-women law firm,
says a woman's right to live depends on strict obedience to social norms and traditions.
In many cases her place in society is summed up by the adage Kor ya Gor (home or death).
Last year a leader-writer on the English-language daily Dawn wrote: "A woman in Upper
Sindh has no individual entity, she is just a chattel. She can be killed by her own son,
husband or brother, or her in-laws, with complete impunity and merely on the suspicion
of being a kari. She can be killed in cold blood if she declines, which she seldom does,
to marry a person chosen by her parents. Only recently a poor girl hanged herself to
death as she was being married against her will" (4). And this is what The News, another
English-language daily, had to say about the helplessness of rural women: "These voiceless
creatures, shackled in a primitive mode of life, are treated worse than even tradable
commodities: they are but household possessions, living and dying at their males' whims" (5).
Pakistan's "men of honour" have the right to be unfaithful. Few forgo that right, even if
it puts their partners in mortal danger.
In this system, when a wife, sister or daughter is accused, it is the man who is seen
as the victim. The community therefore expects him to mete out punishment. Not to do so
would be an even greater dishonour. In such communities an "honour killing" is considered
a just punishment, not a crime. This view is shared by many Pakistanis who do not belong
to tribal societies. Nevertheless, honour or no honour, murder is murder under Pakistani
law. But the law is difficult to apply. There is widespread official indulgence for those
who commit honour killings. "The police and courts implicitly accept the practice," says
Tanveer Jahan. "They treat the perpetrators quite differently from other criminals."
Islamic courts applying the sharia will accept pleas of extenuating circumstances if the
accused is shown to have acted in response to "serious and sudden provocation". A man
sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering his daughter and a young man after they
had been discovered "in a compromising situation" had his sentence cut to five years
by the High Court in Lahore. It ruled that his deed was justified by the behaviour of
the victims, which was intolerable in an Islamic state and unbearable for the head of
a family. Murderers have even been set free in similar cases. At a recent divorce hearing,
women's rights lawyer Asma Jahangir was rebuked by the judge in terms that illustrate the
extent of the problem. "You have no right to be in this court," he told her; "it is you
that ought to be in prison."
Sometimes the courts do rule in favour of the victims. But such judgments often provoke
hostility and outright violence. Jahangir tells of women shot dead on leaving court after
initiating divorce proceedings. And of judges who have paid with their lives for verdicts
seen as contrary to tradition or Islam.
"Despite the severity of the problem, the government's response has been indifferent at best.
At worst it has served to exacerbate the suffering of women victims of violence and to
obstruct the course of justice," writes Human Rights Watch (6). The military regime keeps
a close watch on the courts. In such cases it could institute civil proceedings on its own
account, but chooses not to. The figures speak for themselves: barely 10% of men who
commit "crimes of honour" are arrested and convicted. This is clearly incitement to murder.
General Pervez Musharaf's government has made various declarations of intent, but nothing
has been done. "A major sustained effort on the part of the government would be needed in
order to change the situation. It would have to attack custom and promote education -
in short, transform society in depth," a diplomat explains. "But it has no desire to do so."
Especially as some Islamic circles close to the regime consider any improvement in the status
of women an abomination. They are even calling for reform of the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance
of 1961, which grants women certain basic rights. "No government action against honour killings
is on the agenda," says Shala Zia, a member of the National Commission on the Status of Women.
"The religious front is too powerful."
The rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the last 20 years, accompanied by general application
of the sharia, has been described as the "Talibanisation" of Pakistan. It has profoundly
affected the situation of women. The decrees of 1979, which imposed the death penalty for
adultery and fornication, not only turned criminal into religious offences. They strengthened
the worst tribal traditions. Rape, which is very widespread in Pakistan, has now been
decriminalised and the onus of proof is on the victim.
Numerous ordinances, laws and decrees maintain discrimination against women in violation
of the Pakistani constitution and international treaties such as the UN Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (Cedaw), which Pakistan ratified
in March 1966. But human rights organisations, newspapers and lawyers who campaign for
compliance with the constitution and the country's international obligations frequently
come under violent attack.
Honour killings are widespread. Since they frequently go unpunished, they are increasingly
used to cover up other crimes. The prominent Lahore-based women's organisation, Shirkhat
Gah, recently cited the case of a man who had killed another villager in a brawl and risked
a heavy prison sentence. "Go and kill your sister-in-law," his father told him. "We'll say
she and the dead manwere karo kari."
"The curse of karo kari will have to be chained if Pakistan is to enter the community of
nations as a civilised country," Dawn wrote recently (7). Clearly that is not about to happen.
"Pakistan is a country that does not yet see the need to respect human rights," says Asma
Jahangir. Least of all those of women.
ROLAND-PIERRE PARINGAUX.
LE MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE, April-May 2003.
(1) "Crimes of honour" still exist, but to a far lesser extent, in certain Middle
Eastern countries such as Jordan, Palestine and Yemen, where several dozen cases a
year are reported.
(2) Literally "blackened man, blackened woman", i.e. adultery.
(3) Pakistan: Violence against women in the name of honour, accessible online on Amnesty
International's Web site.
(4) Dawn, Karachi, 3 January 2001.
(5) The News, Lahore, 6 February 1999.
(6) Human Rights Watch, Crime or custom? Violence against women in Pakistan,
New York/London, August 1999.
(7) Aziz Malik, "Fighting karo kari with education", Dawn, Karachi, 3 January 2001.
Translated by Barry Smerin
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