Honour Killing In Pakistan Essay

Are ‘Honour Killings’ considered immoral or wrong in a tolerant way, without being criticized by the state and society? Compare your evidence with Pakistan’s Honour killings situation. This essay aims to answer whether or not Honour killings are being condoned by the state and also the society. This essay will also look at different definitions of the meaning of ‘honour killing’ in the UK and Pakistan ; it will then go on to establish the major points which are taken into account as to why honour killings take place and also to what extent do these honour crimes occur.

In order to answer the question accurately, the essay will go on to expand on the accurate statistics of the honour crime rate and take a wider look at whether it is increasing or decreasing. The main body and the focal point of the essay is to see what sort of effect does the state has on these crimes and what the state is doing to protect the mishap happening in society.

The essay will also go on to develop its argument on whether the UK state has severed the punishment or whether it isn’t given that much of an importance today. Different data will be measured and compared with the situation in Pakistan to give a realistic view of the occurring of these homicides. It will go on to reveal various different points when comparing the statistics rate of United Kingdom honour crimes with Pakistan honour crime in order to answer the question.

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Honour Killings In Pakistan

Honour killings are murders which are committed by family members, mainly males to a female in the family for having brought shame, dishonour and disgrace upon the family. ‘The apparent “shame” could be caused by a victim either refusing to accept the proposal of an arranged marriage or for having a relationship that is considered inappropriate by the family. This may be due to the reason of casts or statuses’. (http://marriage.about.com).

Honour killings are the product of intensely ingrained patriarchal social and cultural prejudices (Yvonne Haddad: 1998: p 144). A woman is forced to endure all the responsibility of maintaining the shared Honour in the family. Women are expected to stay humble and modest before marriage, they are also expected to be dutiful, pure and virginal. They must sacrifice their personal independence and freedom in order to maintain the Honour of the family and community, while male members of the society are not expected to have the same expectations. There are various excuses used for Honour killings in the UK but the most common excuse for ‘Honour killings’ is doubt or knowledge of an ‘intimate’ relationship between a woman and a man, whether it be adultery, sex outside of marriage, pregnancy before marriage or simply becoming close companions.

In some cases, even women who have been a target of brutal crimes like rape or sexual assault can also be a target of ‘Honour killings’, this is because certain communities legally and/or culturally equate these cruel acts with “sex outside of marriage”. Yet there has been more trivial reasons as to how women and girls have been killed by families, these reason consist of simple things such as being in the presence of a male who is not a family member or a relative, refusing to concur to an arranged marriage, for falling in love with someone who is not acceptable in the family’s eyes, for wanting a divorce, or for trying to escape or yet speaking out from marital violence. Sometimes, the mere perception that a woman has behaved disobediently, thus shaming her father, brother, uncle, or cousin, has been a good enough reason to make a brutal attack on her life.

This mishap in society of these women being killed is looked upon as a severe and serious breach of International Human Rights Law. “Human rights are freedoms established by custom or international agreement that impose standards of conduct on all nations. Human rights are distinct from civil liberties, which are freedoms established by the law of a particular state and applied by that state in its own jurisdiction” (Dictionary.com). There are various different and disturbing examples of how the law and customs, which are entrenched within the patriarchal society, erratically allocate more guilt to women than to men in any action supposed to violate ‘norms’ of sexual and moral behavior.

The issue of women rights often causes uneasy discussions. In those societies, the woman is still treated in a traditional manner, with negligence to her basic rights. She is regarded as being inferior to man, and not deserving to enjoy the same rights. This is generally within Middle East countries including Pakistan. This belief is based and built upon a long series of customs and traditions. “Despite the fact that British women have attained some of their rights in the last few decades, there are still some instances of discrimination and violence practiced against them”. (www.sciencedirect.com/science)

Some of those are reflected in the phenomenon of killing women on the background of the honour of the family. This acts as a barrier preventing women from progressing in their lives. “The fact that women are killed is a bitter truth. However, when women and children are murdered by their own close relatives and loved ones is a concept that has its roots mainly in the Middle East where women’s sexuality has always been the centre of power and production”( http://www.islam-watch.org)