In the last five years, 70 people, including 38 women, have been killed in the name of honor in the Swat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
According to the five-year data, 14 people are killed in the name of honor every year in Swat. According to the information received from the Police Department under the Right to Information Act, 12 cases of honor killings were registered in 2017, out of which 1 man and 11 women were killed. In 2018, 11 cases were registered in which 6 men and 5 women were killed. In 2019, 12 cases were registered in which three men and nine women were killed in the name of honor.
In the year 2020, 8 cases were registered in which 1 man and 7 women were killed. In 2021, 11 cases were registered in which five men and six women were killed in the name of honor.
According to police reports, all these incidents took place in Swat and most of them were based on women having unjustified relations being killed. An FIR was lodged at Saidu Sharif police station in Swat in April 2021, in which Shakeel Ahmed (assumed name) killed his wife. According to the FIR, the accused had told the police, “I was in the room with my second wife at night I heard a male voice coming out of the room of my first wife. I went out and knocked on the door of the first wife’s room, but she did not open it. Hearing the noise, the family got up. They tried to break the door. When my first wife opened the door, I saw a 29-year-old man inside who was trying to run away, Then I shot the man first and then my first wife.”
Shah Usman, Assistant Director (M&R), Directorate General of Law and Human Rights, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said that the killing in the name of honor was not just a matter of Swat, but of the whole of KP. Lack of education, property issues, the marriage of choice, personal enmity, and the use of mobile phones are the causes of all these incidents.
Mehnaz, a High Court lawyer from Swat, said that there was a severe lack of laws in Pakistan and the existing laws were ineffective. “All the rights of men and women have been protected in the constitution of Pakistan but unfortunately they are not implemented,” she added.
According to Mehnaz, these incidents will continue to occur until access to quality education is made possible in all parts of the country and awareness is created among the people.
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the rate of honor killings and crimes against women is alarming. Many cases have no access to the police and such cases are decided in the local Jirga which is not registered in the form of documents.
According to the Aurat Foundation, 4,504 women have been tortured in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the last 11 years, some of them including honor killings. In August 2020, six women were killed in Swat by their family members in the name of honor or due to domestic violence.
When DSP Swat police was asked about the reasons for honor killings, they said the reasons were lack of education, conservative thinking, or forcing women to get married against their will, also there is a lack of basic information about Islam. Honor killings in Pakistan are known locally as Karo-Kari. Pakistan has the highest number of documented and estimated honor killings per capita of any country in the world; about one-fifth of the world’s honor killings are committed in Pakistan. 1,000 out of the 5,000 per year total.