WUNRN
Women Living Under Muslim Laws -
WLUML
Source: IRIN
The
Urdu expression `chaddar aur chardawari’ is often quoted in
“My
husband is jobless and a drug addict. He slapped and beat me daily, sometimes
with a stick. I still have scars on my back. Recently, he started to tell
people I was involved with another man, and would kill me for `honour’. I
believed this was his plan, as he wished to marry someone else,” she said.
So she ran away to
“Some days I eat nothing more than a few morsels of `roti’ [flat bread] so
there is something for the kids to eat. We live in a single room with no water
and no power. But had I stayed home, I would have been dead,” she told IRIN.
'Honour' killings
Naseeba’s story is not uncommon. Indeed, she is lucky to be alive. According to
a 22 March report by the autonomous Human Rights
Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), 647 women were killed in the name of 'honour' in
2009 - up 13 percent on the 574 killings in 2008.
|
Women are often too scared to report domestic
violence |
“An
`honour’ killing is carried out because the `honour’ of men in the family is
perceived to have been injured. Often, these killings are just a pretext for
murder motivated by some other petty matter,” said I.A. Rehman,
secretary-general of HRCP.
HRCP also said that in 2009, there were 205 reported cases of domestic violence
compared to 137 the previous year. These included burnings, torture and
beatings.
“This is basically a consequence of the low status of women in society,” said
Rehman.
Other organizations documenting violence against women also found a sharp rise
in 2009. The Lahore-based NGO Aurat Foundation recorded a 13 percent increase
in cases of violence against women in 2009 over 2008. Rabeea Hadi, a
representative for the organization, told a press conference
in
Under-reported?
However,
it is unclear whether there is an actual rise in such attacks on women or
whether there is a rise in the reporting of such attacks. Either way, there is
evidence that cases of violence are under-reported.
“There are many which never see the newspapers, and are therefore never
included in statistics,” said Sehr Ali, a Lahore-based psychologist. “As a
mental health professional, I have met women from all kinds of backgrounds who
do not want to make their plight public. Many don’t even tell close family
members, even when they are slashed with knives or burnt.”
In August 2009, a tough new law was passed
by the National Assembly against domestic violence.
But for women like Naseeba, who have never been to school and have no idea such
a law exists, its value is unclear.
“I cannot understand what this means. And if I played any part in putting my
husband in jail, his brothers would kill me,” she said. “I just have to manage
to stay alive for the sake of my children.”
================================================================
To contact the list administrator, or to leave the list, send an email to: wunrn_listserve-request@lists.wunrn.com.
Thank you.