'Honour Killings' in Pakistan and Compliance of ... - Aurat Foundation

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even if cases are brought to them, they will not implement the relevant sections of the law, and the ignorance will continue. The ignorance of the law of the police is extremely perturbing, as they are the first point of contact before and after a crime and play a major role in the prevention and investigation of a crime. If they are ignorant about the existence of the law and its substance, then they cannot truly effectively deal with the issue. A number of police officers stated that their seniors must know of the law, and that there was no procedure to provide regular updates about laws. The DSP Legal, Islamabad, noted that it is the obligation of every senior police officer to update himself about the laws and to share this information with his subordinate officers. However, this is clearly not happening on a consistent or large scale 76 . Therefore, in the honour killing cases that come before them, the specific elements dealing with honour killings are not being applied! There are, nonetheless, people who do know of the law. However, even within this group they do not necessarily understand all it entails, thereby making them practically as ignorant. For example, a common misconception is that an honour killing has to now be registered under a separate provision enacted under the 2004 law, while in reality, the 2004 act has mostly just amended and added to the existing PPC in order to improve its effectiveness in dealing with cases of honour killings. Even having knowledge of the law has not proved to be very helpful. The role of the police will be discussed below, but suffice it to mention here that the few police officers who do know of the legislation do not necessarily employ it for a number of reasons. Alongside this, there are a number of perpetrators or potential perpetrators who are not daunted by the law. They say that the law does not have control on this issue. They note that due to the involvement of powerful factions of the community in 76 Interview with DSP Legal Islamabad 67
such crimes, they are not considered ‘offensive’. Further, due to the overwhelming social acceptance of the act, action rarely follows. And if it does, they are convinced that money will be sufficient to deal with the issue. Unfortunately, they are not wrong either. Nevertheless, there is a positive side for those who do know about the law. Firstly, the promulgation of the law removed the barriers to discussing the issue. Hence although a large part of the district media may not know of the law, it has received wide coverage in the national media. This has had the effect of bringing to light a growing social intolerance of honour killings. One primary example is the outrage against Senator Zehri when he defended the tradition of honour killing in his area, and the unanimous passing of a resolution in the Senate condemning the honour killing of 5 women in Balochistan, whereas a few years ago at the time of the infamous murder of Samia Imran in Lahore, a senator from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (previously North West Frontier Province) had defended the tradition openly and a resolution condemning the act was thrown out of the Senate. Also, it is not as easy to commit honour killings as it was before, with methods being employed to hide the commission of such crimes, whereas earlier there was no need to do so. Tribal leaders, landlords etc. have also distanced themselves publically from this tradition. Before the promulgation of the 2004 law, honour crimes were committed without any fear, but now these crimes are committed by making some very technical entries in the FIR with the help of the police in order to protect the murderer. So perhaps there has been some positive change! 68
Page 2 and 3:
A Pilot Study on: ‘Honour Killing
Page 4:
Table of Contents Preface 1 Introdu
Page 8 and 9:
Preface Elimination of all negative
Page 10 and 11:
the nature and extent of its compli
Page 12 and 13:
Introduction The Criminal Law (Amen
Page 14:
formalised by the State and ‘lega
Page 17 and 18:
Gender is one of the organisational
Page 19 and 20:
their rights were achieved on paper
Page 21 and 22:
elatives), in effect excluding all
Page 24 and 25: 3. “Honour Killings”: their Pre
Page 26 and 27: patrilineage 17 . From this follows
Page 28 and 29: compensation negotiated to end a di
Page 30: divorced or excommunicated, an act
Page 33 and 34: Article 340 of the Jordanian Penal
Page 35 and 36: monitor women’s movements and kil
Page 37 and 38: mitigation, compensation for the he
Page 39 and 40: The discretion of the court to deci
Page 41 and 42: down for such cases. This applies t
Page 43 and 44: to properly determine the issue bef
Page 45 and 46: Table 1: Number & Percentages of Ca
Page 47 and 48: the police stations are not even eq
Page 49 and 50: Findings of the Research The findin
Page 51 and 52: When asked about the lack of filing
Page 53 and 54: Gujrat Gujrat also shows a similar
Page 55 and 56: community. Perhaps this has been on
Page 57 and 58: eporting it will do when registerin
Page 59 and 60: Jillani reiterated Justice Abbasi
Page 61 and 62: death and it was subsequently disco
Page 63 and 64: Lahore High Court The Lahore High C
Page 65 and 66: meditation falling under the defini
Page 67 and 68: for conservative and biased interpr
Page 70 and 71: 6. Perspective of the Community Whi
Page 72 and 73: mindset and existing confining soci
Page 76 and 77: Role of the Community It is general
Page 78 and 79: court settlement is preferred. Such
Page 80 and 81: 7. Conclusion and Main Findings It
Page 82 and 83: 6. There are also problems with the
Page 84 and 85: 12. These precedents are not necess
Page 86 and 87: hold through these illegal forms of
Page 88: 24. The police can play a very nega
Page 91: The police system is in dire need o
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