What kind problems women facing in Pakistan!
Honor killings (Karo Kari)
Honor
killing or karo kari, a traditional, feudal custom which still
continues whereby couples found in, or more often merely suspected of,
adulterous relationship are summarily done to death by the family
members themselves.
The law takes a lenient view of this 'crime of honor', which often leads it to be abused.
According
to a report by amnesty international released on June 15,2000, several
hundred women and girls die each year in so-called 'honor killings' in
Pakistan, in a backdrop to government inaction.
In its 'Dimensions of violence' report released in January 2000,the HRCP found that in
an 11-month period up to November 1999, at least 266 women had been victims of 'honor killings' in and around Lahore alone.
Certainly,
there seemed to be no improvement in past patterns during the year
2000, with a newspaper reporting a total of 407 murders of women in the
Punjab by June 2000' of these killings, 168 were stated in the FIR to be
motivated by 'honor', while another 109 were committed by a close
relative of the woman, with police citing a suspected 'honor' killing.
Still
more alarmingly, newspapers stated that by April 20,2000,117 lives,
including those of 93 women, had been lost since the start of the year
in sindh as a result of killings attributed to 'Karo Kari'. The sindh
police reported the death of a total of 246 women the previous year as a
result of such murders for 'honor' though activists in the province
maintained this figure was grossly understated.
Hundreds of
'honor' killings, especially in the tribal areas of the North, are
believed to go unreported each year, as a result of social connivance
often involving the district administration, which results in a failure
to report such murders to police.
Woman Murder
Women
are also killed by means other than burning, with motives often linked
to dispute involving their families, or in some cases an effort to
protect themselves. Over 2,000 women, including minors, are estimated to
have been killed over the year 2000 across the country, though no
precise figures are available.
Early
in the year, two women were gunned down in pari village in Sukkur, as a
result of a property dispute involving male members of their families.
In
other incidents, women died while attempting to save themselves against
rape. Tahira,5 was strangled to death in the Garden Town area of Lahore
in September while trying to protect her elder sister from rape by two
sons of the house owner who had broken into the premises.
In
other cases, deaths have occurred during dacoity or been inflicted by
family members as an outcome of crime. An especially alarming case came
to light in Islamabad, towards the end of the year 2000. A middle-aged
woman, the mother of five children, was found to have been tortured by
electric shock and then murdered in her home. Her husband initially
tried to pass off the death as 'accidental' but police investigations
discovered her adult son, Imtiaz, had first subjected her to torture and
then murdered her before taking away her jewellery. His father had
attempted to cover up his crime.
Rape
The
HRCP found a sharp rise in cases of rape over the decade, with
estimates suggesting one woman was raped every two hours somewhere in
the country as against one every three hours at the start of the 1990s
Other
reports suggested the figure could be far higher, given that many
instances rape are never reported as a result of social pressure.
Incidents of abusive incest and rape within marriage are also said to be
common, though they remain almost completely hidden from the public
arena.
According
to the newspaper report in August, 118 reported incidents of rape had
taken place in Lahore alone during the year 2000 by the end of July.
These included the rape of minor girls. Alarmingly, there was a distinct
upward turn in the trend, with 46 cases reported till April and others
taking place in the remaining four months till July. In an increased
number of incidents, rape had taken place during robbery bids.
According
to a newspaper compilation of cases, by June 2000, over 300 cases of
rape had been reported from across the Punjab. 124 involved girls under
the age of 15. FIRs had taken been registered in less than quarter of
the cases.
Kidnapping
As
in the previous years, cases of kidnapping reported to police remained
an issue of some controversy, given that a significant number of those
involving women were believed to have resulted in fact from an elopement
or a decision by The girl to marry against her parents' will. The
registering of an FIR for abduction in such cases as indented was a
social 'cover-up', pointing to the complexities, which surround so many
cases of crimes against women.
This
factor however often contributed to police reluctance to register a
case, thus leaving many incidents of genuine kidnapping unreported.
According to a newspaper report, by June 2000, a total of 337 cases of
kidnapping of women had been reported in the Punjab,145 of them of girls
aged under 15, only ten recoveries had been made.
Police
reluctance to investigate kidnapping cases with urgency resulted in
grave dangers to victims in many cases. In March, a middle-aged wife of a
deaf and dumb man, kidnapped and subjected to rape by a relative, was
rescued in Lahore only after 44 days, though her husband had told police
of the address where he believed she was being held.
At
least three incidents of the death of women, resulting from
maltreatment or grave abuse at the hands of law enforcers, were
reported. In May 2000, police from the Qila Gujjar Singh police station
in Lahore forcibly entered the home of Bilquis Bibi at 3.00am in the
morning, in an effort to detain her husband, who was accused of drug
pushing. Bilquis, pregnant at the time, was severely beaten. She died
hours later as a direct result during the same month, in Rawalpindi,
15-year-old shamim Akhtar died in custody. She had been held in a Hudood
case, and was released from fetters barely a day before her death.
Though she had been held in a Hudood case, and was released from fetters
barely a day before her death. Though she had remained ill, suffering
possibly from tuberculosis, almost no medical help was provided to her.
The reason for keeping her in fetters was unclear.
Other
incidents of abuse of women detained by police, and involvement of
policemen forming a part of gangs engaged in the rape of women during
dacoities also continued to come in. Incidents of the rape of women in
police custody were also reported.
Molestation and Abuse
Apart
from reports of harassment within the workplace, the year 2000 saw an
alarming increase in the molestation of women, often in populated,
public areas. The incidents suggest a growing 'acceptability' of such
offences, with people present at the spot in several cases failing to
make even an attempt to intervene.
- Early in the year, in Islamabad, a shopkeeper in a market assaulted a foreign woman.
- In
May, a gang of canal bathers molested five young Dutch women, walking
along the Lahore Canal close to the busy FC College crossing, after they
stopped to take photographs. Police declined to act on their complaint,
despite pressure from Dutch embassy. The men responsible were rounded
up only after a newspaper revealed their identity, and were then
released from custody within days
- A German female tourist was raped in the Chilas area in July after being separated briefly from her companions.
- Schoolgirls
in Karachi reported in October that a traffic policeman while waiting
to board a van in the city?s Saddar area had molested them.
- In
April, the family of a young woman held at Lahore's Hospital for Mental
Disease reported a staff member had molested her. Though an inquiry was
ordered no further details were reported, amidst an apparent effort to
cover-up the episode. The concerned staff member was according to
newspaper quietly dismissed.