Honor Killings on the Increase in Pakistan

CFI Field Staff, Pakistan

LAHORE, PAKISTAN — In the Muslim nation of Pakistan, according to reports, more than 500 women are brutally killed each year because of “honor.” While no one knows the actual number of women murdered each year, most analysts believe the number is much higher and on the increase.

Usually these murders are carried out by Muslim family members, but often minority Christians are killed by Muslim mobs in the name of “honor.”

The recent murder of Qandeel Baloch by her brother made headlines in Pakistan and around the world. Qandeel was a well-known social media star.

Qandeel Baloch (Photo: Twitter)

After the murder, the brother said to the media, “I have no regrets.”

HONOR KILLINGS LAW

After Baloch’s death, many Pakistanis again called for the passage of an anti-honor killing law, aimed at closing a loophole that allows family members to forgive the killers, thus setting the killers free.

“The death of Qandeel Baloch conveys an insidious message: that women will be kept back at all cost; murdered, if they dare nurture ambitions to break the glass ceiling,” the English daily Dawn newspaper wrote in an editorial on Sunday. “Her murder…must serve as an impetus for legislators to renew demands for legislation to protect women who are threatened under false notions of ‘honor.’”

Basically, an “honor” killing is a way to murder someone without facing any punishment in the Muslim nation

This past June, a mother burned her 16-year-old daughter alive for marrying without family consent.Earlier in the month, a schoolteacher, Maria Bibi, was set on fire for refusing to marry a man twice her age.

A month earlier, 13 members of a local tribal council strangled a girl and set her on fire for helping a friend elope. The charred body of 17-year-old Ambreen Riasat was found in a burned van.

Mainstream Muslim groups in Pakistan have equated women’s rights campaigns with promotion of obscenity. They say giving women rights will destroy the country’s traditional Islamic family system.

Pakistan also has many Christians on death row because of “apostasy” laws, which require only one person to accuse someone of committing apostasy against the Koran. The crime of “apostasy” is death in Pakistan.

Christian Freedom International works in Pakistan assisting Christian slaves in the brickyards, providing security cameras to churches, providing relief & support to victims of bombings and other attacks, and aid to needy, persecuted Christians.