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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JPR who wrote (9025)	10/27/1999 5:19:00 PM
From: JPR	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12475

Bride burning, Honor killings: What is wrong with our culture? dawn.com Heart-rending disclosures THE disclosure by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan that between October 1998 and September 1999, 595 people in Sindh were murdered in honour killings is frightening. What is more alarming, however, is the HRCP's assertion that it is not Sindh, but Punjab, which tops the list of honour killings being committed in the country. The HRCP's disclosure comes a day after it was reported that over ten women in the tribal areas committed suicide for fear of being killed by their husbands or brothers in the name of so-called family, clan or tribal honour. The practice is so widespread and resorted to so wantonly that it is no longer possible - or desirable - to look away from it and pretend that no such horrific aberration exists in our midst as has been done by successive governments: it has become our crying national shame and disgrace. According to the HRCP, hundreds of men and women are killed each year in honour killings. Many such cold-blooded murders go unreported and thus accurate figures are still unavailable in regard to this heinous practice. As other countries strive to better their record on human rights and respect for human life and civilized values, Pakistan seems to be moving backwards by condoning honour killings and, at the same time, being overly sensitive to international criticism of this and other primitive and inhuman practices. Honour killing is in total violation of basic human rights and is not at all permitted by tenets of faith, as some of its perpetrators wrongly believe. What is tragic is that despite the seriousness of the issue, the victims usually find no help from either the police or the official machinery, which watches with studied indifference as people are killed with chilling regularity in the name of a primitive custom or tradition and their perpetrators are allowed to go scot free. This year's high-profile Samia Sarwar case, in which the unfortunate woman was killed at the behest of her parents in the name of honour for demanding a divorce from her husband, continues to be ignored by the authorities. Samia's parents and those involved in her murder have not been apprehended, let alone punished for their crime. The Senate refused to condemn honour killings as in the case of Samia's murder, exposing the warped perceptions of elected members on the issue of so-called honour, which has only brought dishonour to Pakistan and its laws and representative institutions. For their part, the authorities are more concerned about the harsh criticism and revulsion caused by honour killings in the outside world than about the horror and criminality of the practice itself. Government officials continue to insist that this practice is not as widespread as is made out and that organizations like the HRCP are unwillingly playing into the hands of elements out to malign Pakistan. This makes a heart-rending situation only more so. The truth is honour killings are on the increase and many tribal jirgas continue to sanction and uphold such murders as valid and in keeping with a hallowed tradition. The killers are held in high esteem and this only illustrates how badly we have failed as a nation to reform some of the primitive and cruel customs and traditions afflicting our society. Pakistan's international standing has taken a serious battering because of this abhorrent practice. The European Union, Amnesty International and various other organizations have strongly condemned the practice of honour killing and have demanded that the government take a more active interest in trying to root it out. As usual, there is no response from the official side. With a change in government, which has very few political compulsions, it is high time that this issue is recognized for what it is and some sort of action plan is devised to bring the perpetrators of this barbarity to justice. Unless this is done, hundreds of people will continue to die for no fault of their own - only to satisfy the weird sense of honour of a small section of people whose criminal actions and propensities have brought disgrace to this country.