ENGLISH 2 SIGNIFICANT FEATURES OF HONOUR KILLING

A TANGIBLE EVALUATION OF ITS ATTRIBUTES AND KNOWN CASES OF HONOUR KILLING IN PAKISTAN.

Abstract

The honour based violence comprises homicide as well as assault, rape, confinement, acid attacks, forced marriage, and female infanticide. The causal effect to maintain honour is attached to behavior of women that triggers perturbation in existing norms of a society. Therefore, it becomes a subject of domestic domain rather than state quarters, and it is not specific to certain societies. The word ‘honour’ stemmed out from the Latin word ‘honos’, which means worthiness of a person or a group in a society. Later on, it implied adverse assumption of maintaining it through women’s behaviors. The killings are carried out due to eloping and court marriage, rape, premarital sex, sexual association, and adultery etc. The contributing factors of honour killing are attached to social dynamics of a society and significance arises to explore relating key features in the light of Islamic injunctions and global legislations. Such features have been more explicitly addressed by private sector as compared to public sector. The United Nations emphasized upon consideration of honour killing issues under the public sphere for tangible outcomes. In Pakistan, the governmental sectors include Ministry of Women, Ministry of Law, Council of Islamic Ideology, and Federal Shariat Court of Pakistan, while private sectors include NGOs, women right activists, civil societies, media, and public at large. As such, it is outcome of joint efforts that now, there exist innovative laws promulgated in Pakistan, which address honour killing as exclusively punishable phenomenon. The honour killing takes place with regard to three dimensions including honour killing on the pretext of illicit relations, honour killing as punishment for seeking divorce, and honour killing as a result of rape. These dimensions define various parameters causing honour killing depending upon intensity of parameters to account for levels of provocation and accusations.