KARACHI: Pakistan’s southern Sindh province has recorded a 43 percent increase in “honor killing” cases, the provincial police department said on Thursday, with more than 100 women among the victims.
Honor killings, in which family members kill women or men for actions perceived as bringing shame to the family such as choosing their spouse, have long plagued the South Asian country.
In a report released on Thursday, the Sindh police said 142 people, including 105 women, were killed in honor killing cases from Jan. 1 till Aug. 31, compared to 99 during this period last year.
Legal experts and human rights activists have raised concern over the “alarming” increase in honor killings in rural districts as well as urban and commercial centers like Karachi.
“Honor killings are not only being reported more, they are also happening more [frequently]. Earlier it was said this was a tribal phenomenon in Ghotki, Larkana or Shahdadkot [districts in Sindh],” Ali Ahmed Palh, a lawyer and human rights activist, told Arab News.
“But now it has spread to Badin, to areas like Tharparkar. This shows it is not only tribal; it is a societal problem.”
Much of Pakistani society operates under a strict code of “honor,” with women beholden to their male relatives over choices around education, employment and who they can marry.
Although Pakistan passed a landmark law in 2016 to close loopholes that once allowed families to “forgive” perpetrators in these cases, conviction rates remain extremely low, often below 2 percent, according to UN estimates.
Nuzhat Shireen, a former chairperson of the Sindh Commission on the Status of Women, said the “alarming” rise in numbers was in part due to improved reporting of these cases.
“Due to greater awareness, more cases are being reported. But the incidents themselves are also on the rise due to non-implementation of laws,” she said, blaming “a lack of government will and priorities” for the rise.
“The increase is alarming as the numbers are growing not only in rural areas but also in major cities like Karachi.”
Palh called these killings a “stigma on society,” saying that those who commit this offense are often rewarded in “feudal and tribal areas.”
“Often cases are reported as suicides, but later it turns out that parents killed the girl. Killers have become so cunning that they disguise honor killings as suicides,” he said. “Laws are also at fault. Court judgments on honor killing are not properly implemented.”
According to the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, 405 women were killed in 2024 in such cases nationwide, compared to 226 in 2023.
In July, police said they had arrested the father and the ex-husband of an alleged “honor killing” victim among nine people in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. Sidra Bibi, 18, was killed on the orders of a local council of elders in the garrison city of Rawalpindi after she married a man of her choice, according to police.
The same month, police in southwestern Balochistan province arrested 11 suspects after a video shared online appeared to show a young couple being fatally shot for marrying without their families’ approval.
