A young man in Okara shot his two sisters in their home. He did not run or hide. He surrendered, gun still warm, confident that Pakistan would treat him less as a criminal and more as a custodian of family “honour.”
Just two months earlier, in Balochistan, a young couple was executed for marrying without familial consent. The young woman walked to her death, telling her executioner, “You are allowed only to shoot me. Nothing more than that.” Their deaths were recorded and circulated widely, igniting outrage that faded all too quickly.
According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, 405 honour killings were reported in 2024, up from 226 in 2023.
These figures likely understate the scale, as many cases go unreported due to fear and stigma. In Balochistan alone, the Aurat Foundation documented 33 honour killings, including 19 women.
Honour killings are not crimes of passion. They are public acts carried out in full view of families and communities that often approve. Perpetrators rarely fear punishment, and police look the other way.
Meanwhile, courts lean on outdated excuses like “grave provocation.” The 2016 legal reforms were meant to close loopholes, but conviction rates remain negligible. Tribal councils and jirgas continue to sanction killings, and in cities, cases collapse when families forgive or withdraw complaints. The state watches and pretends its role ends with legislation.
Religion is often invoked to justify the murders, though scholars have repeatedly stated these acts have no basis in Islam. The real drivers are patriarchal control and the assertion of male dominance.
When Qandeel Baloch was murdered in 2016, much of society condoned it. That mindset has not changed. Independence in women is still treated as a threat, and their deaths as a price for restoring male honour.
The indictment is not only of the men who pull the trigger. It is of a society that applauds or turns a blind eye and of a state that enacts laws it never enforces. Each life lost is yet another proof that autonomy for women is still a threat and that control over their bodies remains a cultural mandate. Until this menace is confronted head-on and until law and society value women as human beings rather than vessels of “honour,” every daughter, every sister, every young woman remains at risk. *