Dawn.com

By Hasan Zaidi
THE brutal murder of Farzana Parveen in broad daylight in Lahore and in front of a crowd of apathetic or complicit spectators has justifiably outraged decent folk in Pakistan and around the world.

That the murder was carried out because Farzana had dared to marry against her family’s wishes, has also brought to the fore yet again the long-lingering issue of so-called honour killings.

Human rights activists have highlighted once again the apparent scale of the problem and intelligent people wonder where we are headed as a society. Implied in this question and even sometimes stated outright is that society is becoming more regressive, anarchic and violent.

That Pakistani society is becoming more violent there is little doubt. That the writ of the state has eroded and there are troubling issues about the interpretations of Islamic law put forward by the country’s Qisas and Diyat laws, which allow murderers to walk free easily, there is also no question. But do incidents of ‘honour killings’ indicate society is also becoming more regressive as a whole with respect to women?

The argument put forth most often is that the increase in the number of reported ‘honour’ killings shows clearly that violence against women is rising which indicates that society is becoming more and more intolerant of those breaking tradition.

According to HRCP’s figures, compiled from media and police reports and not meant to be exhaustive by any means, 647 women were murdered on the pretext of honour in 2009, 791 in 2010, 943 in 2011, 913 in 2012 and 869 in 2013 (which actually indicates a minor decrease since 2011).

In any case, thousands of women (and men) have been murdered for defying family or social norms over the past decade or two. Some commentators have gone as far as to claim that the space for women is gradually being eroded and linked it to a supposed intrinsic hatred of women in Pakistani society.       More