DATE=9/22/1999
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=PAKISTAN/HONOR KILLINGS
NUMBER=5-44308
BYLINE=PAMELA TAYLOR
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
INTERNET=YES
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Amnesty International says Pakistan has the
world's worst record for killing women who are
believed to have betrayed the honor of their families.
The London-based political group released its report
in Washington (Tuesday 9/21) on the increasing use of
so-called `honor killings.' V-O-A's Pamela Taylor has
more:
TEXT: Amnesty International's Curt Goering says
although the practice known as honor killing takes
place in a number of countries, it has become
tragically commonplace in Pakistan. Such practices
have been reported in other South Asian countries as
well as in the Middle East and North Africa. But Mr.
Goering says in Pakistan hundreds of women are killed
every year but that many more cases go unreported and
almost all go unpunished:
// ACT ONE / GOERING //
The government of Pakistan is guilty of
allowing, even sanctioning, the murders of women
and girls who suffer and die without trial,
without justice and without mercy. We are here
today to ask Americans to help us hold the
Pakistani government accountable for their
complicity in these murders.
// END ACT //
Mr. Goering says Amnesty International is urging many
countries around the world to put pressure on Pakistan
to do more to stop honor killings.
Pakistan's Minister of Information, Mushahid Hussain,
says his government does not sanction the practice.
He told V-O-A (by telephone from Islamabad) that
`murder under any name is reprehensible and should be
punished according to the law.' But just last month,
the Pakistani Senate passed up a chance to crackdown
on honor killings. Lawmakers rejected a resolution
that condemned the practice and called for stricter
laws to combat it.
(Mrs.) Riffat Hassan is originally from Pakistan and
is now a Professor of Religious Studies at the
University of Louisville, Kentucky. She says the most
alarming finding in the Amnesty report is that honor
killings appear to be on the increase in Pakistan.
The report attributes this to the deterioration of law
and order and rising ethnic, regional and sectarian
divisions in Pakistan.
//OPT// Mrs. Hassan, a Muslim theologian, says
although honor killings are more prevalent in Muslim
societies, such practices have nothing to do with
Islam. She pointed out that similar practices even
take place in Western countries like Brazil, Greece
and Italy.
// ACT TWO / HASSAN - OPT //
There is nothing at all in the teachings of the
Koran and the Prophet of Islam - the two highest
sources of Islam - which authorize or legitimize
the use of violence, particularly toward
disadvantaged human beings.
// END ACT - END OPT //
Professor Hassan says any woman in Pakistan can become
a victim of honor killing, but she says women in
rural, patriarchal communities are most vulnerable.
One young woman from such a community escaped this
fate and fled to the United States with her husband.
Humaira Butt repeats the story she told Amnesty
International about how she was tortured by members of
her own family for going against their wishes and
marrying a man of her own choosing:
// ACT THREE / BUTT //
I met Mehmood in 1991. The next year, I left my
village, went to Mehmood and said I wanted to marry
him. So members of my family caught me and tortured
me. They took me to the hospital and put a plaster
cast on my healthy arms and legs for two months and
tortured me. I still have marks on my body. They also
beat my husband and tortured him so much that he also
has marks on his body.
// END ACT //
//OPT// Humaira says this does not just happen to poor
rural girls; it happens at all levels of society.
Humaira is the daughter of a parliament minister and
the niece of a police commissioner. She says they
were complicit in punishing her for damaging the
family's honor by wanting to choose her own husband.
//END OPT//
The Amnesty report cites several hundred similar cases
of abuse, including one instance where a woman was
killed because her husband dreamed she was unfaithful
to him.
A woman's rights group in Bethesda, Maryland,
`Sisterhood is Global' agrees with the Amnesty report
that Pakistan has the worst record among nations where
honor killings are practiced. A spokeswoman for the
group, Rakhee Goyal, says they have also noted a
recent and startling increase in honor killings in
Pakistan. But she says it is not clear whether this
is due to a rise in such practices or an increase in
reporting them.
Amnesty officials are calling on Pakistan's government
to institute three basic reforms: make women equal
under the law; create secure shelters for abused women
and honor the international human rights conventions
which prohibit torture and murder. (Signed)
NEB/PAM/ENE/JO
22-Sep-1999 16:03 PM EDT (22-Sep-1999 2003 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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