Legal experts at a seminar on Friday called for change in the approach towards Karo-kari (honour killings) -- from the registration of an FIR till the time when an accused is awarded punishment -- and effective implementation of relevant laws to defeat the crime.The seminar on 'Honour killings in Pakistain and compliance with law', a pilot study by Advocate Maliha Zia Lari, was hosted by Aurat Foundation's legislative watch programme for women empowerment.
Detailing the study, Ms Lari earlier explained the various problems she and her team faced when gathering information on honour killing in Pakistain.
She identified three factors -- police, court and community -- and said that she had to eventually rule out district courts as an option since they were very difficult to access.
Focusing mainly on FIR, Ms Lari felt that the categorisation of reports was a problem because often the murders were misreported. For instance, she said, all details of the crime were listed but the term "honour killing" was not mentioned in an FIR.
"When the term is not mentioned in the FIR, the police record it as a murder, and not as honour killing," she explained. This resulted in further complications since if an FIR was not strong enough the prosecution might lose in court.
In other cases, Ms Lari added, people registered ordinary murders as cases of honour killing in order to increase its social acceptability.
The advocate said that while a few cases of honour killings were filed in the Sindh High Court, not a single case was reported in Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
She said it was a widely held view that police in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa endorsed the crime, while contradictory decisions were made in Punjab to either condemn or support honour killings. There was also social pressure on the police in a few incidents, she added.
Ms Lari highlighted the fact that most victims of honour killings belonged to working class and perpetrators often used the pretext of women stepping out of their houses in order to commit the crime.
She said that 1,636 honour killings had been reported in the media from 2008 to 2010 according to an Aurat Foundation report.