Four family members, father, brother, cousin and former husband of 25 old Farzana Iqbal, who was bludgeoned to death outside the Lahore High Court (LHC) premises earlier this year, were sentenced to death by an Anti-Terrorism Court on Wednesday. The second brother, Ghulam Ali, was sentenced to ten years in prison and fined Rs. 100,000. The case has attracted attention from both the local and international community, owing to the brutal nature of the crime. The defense counsel plans to challenge the decision.
Incidents of honour killing transcend cultures, ethnicities and religions. In Pakistan, victims of such crimes are predominantly females, who are mostly murdered by male members of the family and the wider community, both found working together on several occasions in the name of honour. Although the offending parties often invoke religion, there is a general agreement amongst Islamic scholars that such acts are not permissible according to scripture. Honour killings are in fact the most crude and distressing manifestation of misogyny that is etched in culture and mindsets. Such incidents will not cease, as long a patriarchal society, such as Pakistan’s, is not transformed to one that enjoys a balance between genders.
Women remain the weak and vulnerable, many spending their entire lives in servitude and a state of perpetual hopelessness. When their actions appear to show disregard for perceived acceptable behavior, they are punished by the enforcers, who may take the shape of family members, police officials who turn away aggrieved parties, society elders who sanction these crimes, judges who only find the victim guilty of provocation or political parties that remain unmoved. The fight against honour killings cannot be won without the empowerment of the female gender, through education, legal protection, opportunities in the market and other ways that will allow them to acquire their encroached space.
As is the case with several other issues, honour killings have been on the rise in Pakistan partially due to the ineffectiveness of the criminal justice system. Weak law and order allows impunity for culprits. Several cases go unnoticed. Those that manage to find their way to doorsteps of justice, more often than not, meet Farzana’s fate. State machinery will not shake out of paralysis by itself. Political parties have a serious role to play. While it is encouraging to see a larger number of female members seated in the Parliament, it is truly disappointing to find social issues such as honour killings at the very bottom of their respective parties’ priority lists. Regrettably, it makes sense why this is: it is not on the average voter’s mind either.