Day: January 8, 2012

By: Saadia Qamar

KARACHI: Women who speak up against harassment are often branded “bad women”, reminded Fouzia Saeed, the author of Working with Sharks and Taboo, at an event held at The Second Floor this week. “A good woman is considered to be someone who sacrifices and remains silent, whereas a bad woman speaks up.” And the notion of ‘bad women’, Saeed says, comes from the ‘Old Europe’ notion of witches.

Saeed, a human rights activist and a director at the learning institute Mehergarh, was speaking at a discussion about her new book. She recalled her own experience at the UNDP, where she was harassed by a male colleague, and along with 10 other women, she filed a case against him. But the stigma, Saeed says, is still attached to the women. While they are survivors, lodging a complaint turns you into “bad women”.

The notion of good versus bad is bred in the gap between academic and practical life. “Girls who are bred in an all-girls school are told that good is out there in the world. Precisely, you need to do good and be good. However, when practical life starts, things are sadly very different. It’s the same case with girls who are getting married and they think life is definitely going to have a fairy-tale ending. That is never the case. This is real life and all kinds of people live in this world. You need to keep Bollywood and Hollywood away from your thoughts on reality.” The stigma prevents women from talking about the issue. “When exactly are we going to allow these women to speak out?” Saeed asked. “In 2012, how long are we going to stigmatise women and consider them lepers living in our [midst]? Is it going to take the next seven lives to do away with it, all?”

A question and answer session was held after her talk. She was asked where one needs to draw the line at the workplace. The scale should be your comfort level with a respective individual, she said. “If you are uncomfortable with someone, be assertive in your communication.”

Source: The Express Tribune

By: Naziha Syed Ali

For Bashir and his wife Nafisa*, an act as simple as setting foot on their native village spells certain death. They have not been back since they got married six years ago. Their crime: they fell in love. Not even the fact that they are now parents of three little boys will Nafisa’s family be saved from a swift and brutal retribution. In the latter’s eyes, only murder can avenge the “dishonour” brought upon them by her actions.

“We were attacked by her brothers when we went to the Sukkur sessions court in connection with the case of kidnapping they had filed against me but we managed to escape,” says Bashir.

Two months after their elopement, a jirga presided over by the local feudal decreed that the couple, whenever and wherever found, was to be killed. Moreover, Bashir’s family was to give Rs 200,000 as well as three girls to Nafisa’s tribe as compensation.

To this day, they live in hiding, moving from one place to another lest they are discovered. Back in his village in district Naushahro Feroze, Sindh, Bashir’s family remains under threat.

The couple is fortunate to be alive. According to an Aurat Foundation report, 557 women alone were killed on the pretext of honour in Pakistan in 2010. Honour killings, also known as karokari (meaning black) or siyahkari, occur more frequently in areas where feudal traditions are deeply entrenched for this is the milieu where women are considered the property of the family, to be bartered and traded according to the will of the men. And, sometimes, put to death on the pretext of having violated the tribal code of honour.

In a society where justice is a distant dream for most, it is even more elusive for victims of honour killing. The dice is loaded against them from the very beginning of the judicial process.

Many murders in the name of honour go entirely unreported. In other instances, the police will usually record the crime in the FIR as murder rather than an act of ‘honour killing’, even though the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2004 for the first time defines “honour crimes” in the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC). This omission compromises the entire process of obtaining justice.

“When a case of honour killing is reported, a different mode of investigation needs to be employed,” says advocate Maliha Zia Lari who recently authored a report on the subject for the Aurat Foundation. “This includes talking to family members and people in the locality to explore underlying issues. This is not a routine investigation but a lengthy one that requires the police to keep going back again and again.”

An ordinary murder is very different from an honour killing. In the latter, the complainant in the FIR, the nominated accused and the witnesses are usually related to one another. This makes it more likely that the complainant will hide or twist facts in the narrative of the FIR and that the witnesses will change their statements in the court, giving the benefit of the doubt to the accused.

Moreover, according to DIG Khalique Shaikh, “In such cases it is not only the principal accused who is involved; there are accessories to the crime. These include those involved in the planning, those who assisted by their presence at the crime scene, and those involved in aiding, abetting and concealing the crime. When the motive is shown as honour and the investigating officer is fully sensitised, he will look into the matter properly and take action against all these. If this motive remains hidden in the FIR the investigation is likely to ignore these aspects.”

The effects of a flawed investigation carry over into the courtroom where arguments are based on the FIR and police findings. Also, when an honour killing is recorded as murder, the accused can be released on bail by the court because murder is a bailable offence, whereas honour killing was made a non-bailable one under the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2004.

Shirin Javed, a human rights activist in Peshawar, says that according to information gleaned from media reports and crisis centres, there were around 25 instances of honour killing in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in 2010. The police did not register even one of them as an honour killing.

It is not only the desire to take the easy way out that makes the police desist from recording an honour killing as such in the FIR. Many in the police force are not personally invested in probing cases of honour killing because they share the same mindset as that of the perpetrators. The Aurat Foundation’s report mentioned above cites the example of the DPO Nowshera, Nisar Tanoli who asked the researcher, “If you come to know that your wife is involved with someone, what will your reaction be? Won’t you kill her?”

Even when the police tries to do its duty in such cases, it is hampered by institutional weaknesses. These include paucity of training in forensic investigation, difficulty in locating genuine eye-witnesses, and lack of assistance from family members of victims.

The parallel quasi-judicial systems prevalent in many areas of Pakistan also play a pernicious role in perverting the course of justice. The institution of the jirga, an integral part of the feudal setup, is a source of income for many waderas, with major tribal disputes netting them at least five million rupees from each side. Mediating an issue as incendiary as honour is another opportunity for financial gain.

Advocate Shabbir Shar describes how investigations are deliberately skewed by the police at the behest of the local landlord, so that even if the case does go to court, there is no chance of a conviction. “They will deliberately engineer inconsistencies in the witness statements, between the evidence collected from the crime scene and the post-mortem report,” he says.

“For example, they may collect one empty from the place of the incident whereas the body has evidence of three bullet wounds. These inconsistencies go to the benefit of the accused at the time of trial.”

Other tactics are also routinely used to discourage families from going to court. In December 2011, a jirga held in Shikarpur was presided over by former minister Manzoor Panhwar. It levied a fine on the brothers of a woman murdered by her husband because they had filed a case of honour killing against their brother-in-law.

On an occasion when a case goes to trial, the general problems in the legal system come into play, such as interminable delays and fees collected under various heads by state prosecutors who are supposed to provide their services gratis.

For those seeking justice for their daughters murdered in the name of honour – and there is an increasing number at least in Sindh – there are added perils. “Because of the delay, they are exposed to danger from interested parties for that much longer,” says advocate Maliha Zia Lari. “They are also under psychological pressure from the community because there is shame associated with taking such cases to court. There is a perception that the girl did something wrong and, by pursuing the case, they are seen as condoning their daughter’s behaviour.” Such pressures compel many families to give up and settle out of court.

Moreover, those charged with honour crimes often have an edge in court not only courtesy flawed investigations but by virtue of loopholes in the law itself. Under the Qisas and Diyat Ordinance 1990, the offence is a compoundable one, which means that the victim’s legal heirs can forgive the accused or agree to blood money whereby he is spared the death penalty. Given that in cases of honour killing, the accused is often a member of the victim’s own family, this is tantamount to a perversion of justice.

While the Criminal (Amendment) Act 2004, also known as the Honour Killings Law, increases the penalty for honour killing to 25 years or death in the absence of a compromise, the punishment is not mandatory. With no option of minimum punishment available to them, many judges are reluctant to go the distance in the absence of an ironclad case, as a result of which the accused go scot-free.

Of late, it has also been seen that the plea of “grave and sudden provocation” which was often used successfully as a mitigating circumstance by the defence before the passage of the 2004 law, has once again started colouring judgments, particularly by the Lahore High Court.

There are lawyers who acknowledge that in comparison with the conservative and patriarchal mindset of the latter, the Sindh High Court has been more progressive. According to journalist Nisar Khokar, “For this reason, many couples from Punjab and Balochistan who want to have a civil marriage are choosing to appear before the Sindh courts.”

However, progress on the issue of honour killings remains slow. Unless the police and the court take a more proactive stand on the issue, women will continue to be murdered in the name of honour in this country and the crime, more often than not, will be buried with them.

Source: The News

By: Shahzada Irfan Ahmed

There have been several attempts to sensitise the masses on the menace of honour crimes and to discourage the practice of punishing women in the name of honour in the country. For example, there were training sessions and material distributions by the National Commission on the Status for Women, an establishment of the Human Rights cells in Sindh, UNDP facilitated training of police officials in the country, the launching of research reports and on-ground work by NGOs, induction of policewomen in the force and the setting up of all-women police stations to minimise chances of gender bias in registration of such cases and so on.

The results, however, have not been too encouraging and the reasons many. The major and the foremost, according to those directly involved in these exercises, has been the society’s support for such acts. The concept of ghairat (or honour) is so strongly embedded among people that they do not bother to even verify the allegations.

Farida Shaheed, Director of Research at Shirkat Gah, tells TNS in such cases the people of a particular locality get united and adversely affect the police investigations. She says they have observed during field visits to the areas of crime that hardly anybody dares to provide evidence due to society’s pressure. Therefore, the foremost need is to prepare the society for a change in mindset.

This is something that hampers the provision of justice as many judges have confirmed during talks with their teams. How can a case proceed in the absence of witnesses? she asks.

Shaheed stresses the need for the courts to try these cases with due diligence, as acquittals lead to perpetuation for impunity with which honour crimes are committed.

About the scope of her organisation’s work, she says they operate at village level and target small communities. The state must launch awareness campaigns at mass level and involve mass media to get the message through.

She says that a project was started in Ustad Muhammad in Balochistan where five women were buried alive. The lawmakers from the province termed the act in accordance with their traditions and tried to ward off criticism. Today, she says, an organisation with the name of Nisa is active there and people’s attitude has changed considerably. “Instead of running away, the couples willing to marry of their own will are happily contracting marriages. And, above all, the locals have no problem with this.”

According to Farida, the realisation among them is that they do not need to fear or feel ashamed as marriage of choice is supported both under the state law and in Islam as well as other religions.

She believes there is no justification for calling brutal acts of violence as ‘honour crimes’. The word honour should be removed forthwith.

In fact, the right to own women and being the custodian of their chastity is also assumed by men themselves and with no religious sanctions. The same question is asked by a young Sindhi girl in a piece of poetry by Attiya Dawood, a Sindhi activist and poet, which follows below:

“What is there to my body?… Is it studded with diamonds or pearls? My brother’s eyes forever follow me. My father’s gaze guards me all the time, stern, angry… Then why do they make me labour in the fields? Why don’t they do all the work by themselves? We, the women, work in the fields all day long, bear the heat and the sun, sweat and toil and we tremble all day long, not knowing who may cast a look upon us. We stand accused and condemned as kari and murdered.”

Zia Ahmed Awan, Advocate and President of Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA), says he hasn’t seen any positive results of the various awareness building exercises on honour crimes carried out over the year. The reason, he cites, is that the community-sanctioned form of violence cannot end till their perpetrators – many of who are sitting in assemblies and cabinets – are taken to task.

Zia says many parliamentarians are directly involved in honour crimes and the police and other law enforcement paraphernalia come to their help.

He says it’s good to have laws but equally bad not to have the will to implement them. For example, the apex court has declared jirgas illegal but the practice is still going on and there are more than 100 FIRs registered in Sindh against them. Most of these jirgas were held to decide punishments for honour crimes.

Not long ago, a DIG posted in Sindh raided a jirga being headed by a parliamentarian who is a minister in the sitting federal cabinet. The parliamentarian moved a privilege motion in the parliament and the said official is still without a posting.

According to Zia, the jirga elders strictly warn the participants not to give evidence and in case of non-compliance with the order get ready for a horrible punishment.

Zia suggests the government should develop a witness protection system, set examples by punishing culprits, however influential, and incorporate chapters in curricula against honour crimes to get desired results. “It’s very hard to achieve them without creating deterrents.”

Prof. Siddique Akbar, a religious scholar based in Lahore, believes there’s a need to make people realise they commit sins in the name of religion. The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) condemned the act of infidels who used to bury their infant daughters alive, he says. They did this to avert the remote possibility of their daughters bringing shame to them. The mindset behind honour crimes is the same that existed in those times, he adds.

Source: The News

By: Saadia Salahuddin

When a woman leaves home without the consent of her family it has to be the boldest step for her, in our culture at least. She does so mostly under threat to her life or, sometimes, because she is not allowed to marry of her own choice or is subjected to physical and mental torture at the hands of her husband and in-laws. She lands in a shelter home. Ironically, here she is no less vulnerable, precisely for lack of proper security arrangements. A case in point: the Nov 2011 murder of a girl within the very premises of Darul Amaan in Chakwal.

Farah Rubab, 30, was from village Qutbaal, Tehsil Fateh Jhang, District Attock. She had filed a case of divorce (khula) from her husband while her family opposed it. She left home with her brother’s driver who drove her to Darul Amaan Chakwal where she put up at till one day her brother Adnan Khan came to see her with a servant. He had a 10-minute meeting with her, after which he asked his servant for something. It was a pistol. The next moment Adnan had shot his sister dead. This, in the presence of two peons who were hanging around the place at the time.

“Ten to twelve women were killed in Chakwal alone, for honour, in the year 2011,” says Nosheen, a women’s rights activist working with the NGO Bedari, based in the said district.

In another part of the country, a poor woman landed at Darul Amaan Mianwali, when her own family refused to have her. Reason: she had reported to the police that some proclaimed offenders (POs) were after her while her husband was away for his job. The police raided her husband’s house and killed a PO there. As a result, her husband and her in-laws turned up against her. Her own family also didn’t accept her back. She had no choice but to run off to a shelter home.

Interestingly, whereas the idea of the existence of a shelter home for women is to send them back to their families after a conflict is resolved, there is no assurance of a life-long arrangement of this sort once they return home. Lahore’s Darul Amaan received 1,852 women in 2011 while Faisalabad, the industrial city of Punjab, put up 1,254 women the same year. A 32-year-old woman named Parveen Sajawal from Okara refused to go with her family because she didn’t trust them and fears for her life.

Parveen left her husband’s home because he used to beat her. Now her siblings visit her frequently, together with her brother-in-law (husband’s brother), and try to convince her to get back home but she is determined not to. The Lahore Darul Amaan has a host of psychologists who Parveen has seen a couple of times for counseling. The shelter home staff does not push women out to live with their families. They leave the place at their own will.

In January 2011, Amina, 25, from district Mianwali, who was married and pregnant at the time, came to Darul Amaan Lahore where she had a miscarriage. She had been forced into the marriage and it was known within her family that she wanted to marry someone else. Once at Darul Amaan, Amina was cajoled by her treacherous brothers into returning home where she was killed two months later. The family was so influential that no FIR could be registered in her hometown. Instead, her family placed the blame on the man the late Amina wanted to marry.

In a common Pakistani society, girls are forced to stick with their husbands, however harsh, and – moreover – to stay with their in-laws, no matter how tough and unfair. Saira, in her 30s, managed to flee to Darul Amaan in Sahiwal when her family didn’t let her marry the man she loved and filed a divorce case in the court of law. Her family tried all possible ways to convince her out of the place but didn’t succeed. Eventually, she was killed by her brothers and cousins as she was returning from the court in police custody. She had won the case but didn’t live to celebrate her victory.

Lack of family and social support often lead women into shelter homes and once they are there, a stigma is attached to them. Life does not return to normal for them ever again.

Source: The News

SUKKUR: A man and a woman were killed on the pretext of Karo Karo here on Saturday. According to the police, Roshan Ali and his accomplice Akbar, cousins to one another, murdered their cousin Zahida, daughter of Ghulam Mustafa, and her alleged paramour Bakht Ali, son of Imam Bakhsh, in the name of honour in Nazar Muhalla in Larkana. Police said that both the men surrendered themselves at the police station, confessing that they had committed the murders.

Source: The News