August 5, 2024
ISLAMABAD – HORRIFIED by TV images of a young woman in a hospital in upper Sindh, and whose own father had attacked her with an axe because she wanted to divorce an abusive husband, I googled ‘woman+axe+attack’, and what did I find?
Where a man has been ‘dishonoured’, axes are among the weapons of choice. Others include knives, shotguns, pistols, rocks, machetes and even fuel — mostly kerosene and petrol — to redeem the lost ‘honour’. Kudos to a society where the conviction rate for ‘honour killing’ ranks near zero and often the perpetrator is a member of the victim’s own family.
Most of us assume our family’s support no matter what we do. Imagine the despondency and loneliness that must fill that woman’s life and soul when her own father attacked her so savagely that he almost severed her legs below the knee. All for the crime of wanting to escape from an abusive relationship.
Similarly, a man attacked his granddaughter with an axe in the Karachi suburb of Korangi and killed her a fortnight ago. She had married of her own will, angering her family, and had moved to Jamshoro with her husband. Her grandfather had brought her back on the pretext of a patch-up and then axed her to death.
Before you criticise me for acting all shocked at something that routinely happens in our society and has been happening for decades, let me tell you that each time such a crime takes place, it fills me with infinite rage and also despair because I know the following day it will be forgotten.
The man’s honour redeemed, one can be sure that the loss of the murdered woman would also only be mourned by another woman, perhaps the mother or the sister. It seems like an endless cycle. Somewhere religion is invoked, in other instances, tribal laws, not to mention the much-cited/ abused ‘our traditions’.
Whatever the grounds, the murder victim is almost always a woman. To confirm this, you only need to google and, in a moment, dozens of stories from the early 2000s (I suspect because that is when most Pakistani papers were digitised with searchable content) to this day will show up.
Our great, enviable traditions and our faith-based order don’t seem to put a stop to how we perceive women — demonstrably not as equal beings with rights we men take for granted — or to our feelings of horror and rage when they wish to exercise their free will.
The following are just random statistics to make the point, and not to say the issue is confined to one part of Pakistan. In 2019, in Sindh alone 108 women were killed in the name of honour. But our honour went for a walk when last year some 500 women and underage girls were sexually assaulted and over 4,000 physically attacked in Karachi.
From the deep recesses of KP to remote parts of Balochistan crimes against women happen every day, mostly in the name of honour. The perpetrator is almost always a man whose honour remains intact when he is responsible for a woman’s abuse, assault or witnesses it and does nothing.
And before anyone thinks that Punjab is immune to such violence, here is a small window to the size of the problem in the province. In 2022, there were 39 ‘honour killings of women’ in Gujrat district alone and 35 the following year. There are over three dozen districts in the province.
The number of ‘unreported’ crimes would surpass the ones listed here, regardless of the location.
In my search, in recent weeks, I found such a crime in Dera Ghazi Khan and Bahawalpur.
In the first case, the woman was shot, and in the second, the husband poured fuel over his wife and set her alight. There is very little left to the imagination in terms of the final moments of the victim.
Whenever journalists including columnists, such as this one, draw attention to the wrongs/ ills in society that have remained unaddressed for as long as one can remember, at least a couple of readers write, decrying the ‘negative stories you report’ without offering any solutions.
So here are some suggestions. The PPP was led by one of the most courageous women I know. Its leadership needs to commit itself to fighting against this evil. Even today, the Bhutto name is revered in large swathes of the province. Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and his sibling Aseefa Bhutto-Zardari should personally lead a high-profile campaign, and rush to the places where such incidents are taking place.
As an essential part of this campaign, they should personally ensure that the survivors of such crimes receive state protection including relocation and perhaps an ID change on the lines of witness protection programmes abroad. Equally, prosecution should be no holds-barred. Perhaps special ‘honour crimes’ courts should be set up and cases fast-tracked.
Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz could lead a similar effort in her province. Her high-profile role and personal interest in such cases would do wonders to rehabilitate her party in the province. It needs no reminding that women are at least half the country, even if we treat them as lesser beings.
Another concrete suggestion. A national task force can be set up to address all factors related to this brutal crime. And though I don’t have her consent to mention her, PPP MNA from Khairpur, Dr Nafisa Shah, should be drafted in as her expertise in detailing such cases was evident in magazine and newspaper writings — as well as her doctoral dissertation if I am not wrong.
Last but not least, former prime minister Imran Khan, who has the most effective narrative-building machine, needs to be asked to help with public messaging and throw in his personal weight behind it. Perhaps, if all these things happen, we may have the beginnings of a turnaround.