- Title: PAKISTAN: Honour killings horrify Pakistan, help slow to come
- Date: 30th September 2005
- Summary: DERA GHAZI KHAN, PAKISTAN (RECENT - SEPTEMBER 25, 2005) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF HOSPITAL, SIGNBOARD OF CASUALTY DEPARTMENT WOMEN ENVELOPED IN BURQAS COMING OUT OF CASUALTY WARD VIOLENCE VICTIM AMNA ABBAS LYING ON HOSPITAL BED CLOSE OF AMNA'S BANDAGED FACE AMNA'S PARENTS SITTING AMNA GASPING FOR BREATH AMNA AND HER BROTHER GHULAM AKBAR LYING ON HOSPITAL BEDS (SOUNDBITE) (Seraiki) GHULAM AKBAR, BROTHER OF VIOLENCE VICTIM AMNA ABBAS, SAYING: "It was very cruel. I kept telling him: 'Don't do this cruel thing. Kill us but do not shame us." AMNA WALKING OUT OF HOSPITAL WITH HER FAMILY
- Embargoed: 15th October 2005 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Pakistan
- City:
- Country: Pakistan
- Topics: Lifestyle
- Reuters ID: LVADPAB4LMULRJ0E4TUOFA3S16GS
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- Story Text: Twenty-year-old Amna Abbas lies on a narrow hospital bed, breathing laboriously through swathes of bandages that almost cover her entire face. Her nose was hacked off and her upper lip sliced by her brother-in-law, Hasan Abbas, because she had gone to court to seek a divorce from her abusive husband. Hasan Abbas first shot at Amna and her brother causing them to fall off a bicycle, as they made their way home from a court in Dera Ghazi Khan, a town 125 km (78 miles) southwest of Multan, in a tribal area of the central province of Punjab. He then attacked the eight-month pregnant woman with a knife. "It was very cruel," Amna's brother, Ghulam Akbar, said as he lay on a ward bed next to her with eleven bullet wounds in his legs. "I kept telling him: 'Don't do this cruel thing. Kill us but do not shame us."' Amna, mother of four young children, says Hasan Abbas told her he would not leave her fit for any other man. She says she wants to die because, by losing her nose, she has brought dishonour to her family for ever. The provincial government and a sympathetic surgeon have offered to reconstruct her mutilated face, but many others are not so lucky. Hundreds of women are killed by male relatives in Pakistan every year after being accused of bringing shame on their families by having affairs with other men. Numerous cases have also been reported of women being disfigured as punishment for offending a man's honour.
Official estimates put the number of honour killings at over 4,000 between 2001 and 2004. Justice, however, is not so easy to come by. Rights activists say laws to protect women exist only in books because the judicial procedure is so tedious and convoluted that in most cases victims of violence give up fighting in frustration. Even law-enforcing authorities accept their limitations. "We have formed a team for his (Hasan Abbas) arrest, but there are some legal complications. Police cannot enter the tribal area," said police inspector, Mohib Ali Baloch, in his office on the outskirts of Amna's village. "However, we are in touch with the tribal elders and leaders. Yesterday our team had managed to reach his house," he said adding the Abbas could not be arrested without permission of the tribal elders.
Shehnaz Bokhari has been a Womens' Rights activist for the past 18 years in the male-dominated society of Pakistan and has been at the forefront of the fight against violence on women. She makes regular rounds to meet and encourage women who have been brutalised by their husbands. While the government introduced legislation this year specifically outlawing honour killings, rights groups say they have still to see it fully enforced and they have seen no evidence of a decrease in karo-kari murders. "Karo-kari" is a type of honour killing; "siah-kari" is a type of honor killing; burning of women is again a type of honour killing. This is at the max(imum). And why it is happening, again, (because) the perpetrators go scot free," says Bokhari. Despite the low status of women in society, Pakistan has twice elected a woman Prime Minister. Critics say Benazir Bhutto did painfully little to protect women.
Pakistan's attitude towards violence against women has come under the international spotlight after the Washington Post quoted President Pervez Musharraf saying many of his compatriots believed that crying rape was a fast way to make money and get a visa for Canada. Musharraf insists he is a strong advocate of women's rights and maintains he was misquoted. "One thing which President Musharraf has done, no democratic governments were able to do - bringing women at such a huge number in the political system and the policy-making level is a great achievement," Bokhari said. "I always say its my hats off to the gentleman. But, you know, it is his attitude now what counts." She says the flood of women into mainstream politics in the country is a sure sign of better times to come. "Sometimes we get very frustrated; we think nothing's being done. But looking at the angle, this different angle, I think no; I see a lot of light, I see sun at the end of the tunnel." Most Pakistanis, however are not that optimistic with many saying that until courts hand down death sentences for such crimes, violence against women would continue. "Musharraf should imagine that this is his own daughter; any minister should imagine that this is his daughter," said Zakia Begum, whose neighbourhood in Rawalpindi has recently gone through the trauma of seeing a young woman critically burnt by her in-laws. "When they think of their own daughters, then most certainly she (burn victim) will get help, and she will get justice." "Whoever has done this should be hanged in public. He should be given exemplary punishment so that others are deterred," said Shaukat Ali, another neighbour. The worry and indignation is shared by many. "For the past one week there has been no happiness in our house. No one has eaten, or slept peacefully," said Feroza Bibi who lives in a low-income neighbourhood of Rawalpindi where a teenaged girl was raped recently. "The culprits should be arrested. If the culprits are caught, other daughters will be safe also." Neighbours said the girl belonged to a "decent, religious family" who had fallen foul with the security agencies after the recent clampdown on anyone associated with 'madrasas' (religious schools). There were rumours she had been picked up on her way back from school by law-enforcing personnel to get information about a madrasa-going brother and dropped outside the alley hours later, shoe-less and hysterical. Medical reports said she had been raped.
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