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Blog Post #2- What are some concerns of law in different countries?

My inquiry question is “What are some concerns of law in different countries?”

In my second round of research, I will be looking into honor killing or what some countries call shame killing. I only notice this terrible law recently, from a news article I read online, which is about the Pakistan court frees brother for the killing happened in 2016. Waseem, the brother, had admitted in a 2016 media conference organized by police that he strangled his 26-year-old sister due to her social media activities. The major issue with the Muslim country’s laws with “honor killings” was that the murderer can be freed purely because of a family member’s pardon. In this case, the victim’s mother, who is also the murder’s mother submitted a statement in the court that she had pardoned him. [1]

Having about one-fifth of the world’s honor killings committing in Pakistan, approximately a thousand women are murdered by family members in Pakistan each year for alleged breaches of honor, such as elopement, fraternization with males outside marriage, or other transgressions of orthodox Muslim female modesty ideals. It is likely that honor killing has been a practice in Pakistan for thousands of years, and, despite recent legal reforms, it remains a common practice in Pakistan today.[2]

Although condemned by international conventions and human rights organizations, honor killings are often justified and encouraged by various communities. The laws are still there because of religious and cultural reason. In places like India and Pakistan, sexist is still a huge problem, these ridiculous concepts lead to these horrible laws.[3]

Laws should be protecting everyone; woman and children should also be protected. Born as a woman should not be a reason of being killed, and Man should not have privilege because of their gender. With the protection of the honor killing, man would kill their family members and be pardoned by another family member.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/14/pakistan-court-frees-man-convicted-of-honour-killing-of-sister

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honour_killing_in_Pakistan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/28/opinions/pakistan-honor-killings-afzal-kohistani-zakaria/index.html

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2 Comments

  1. Hi Wayne,
    I have heard of honour killings, however, I did not know that they were largely performed in Pakistan. I would suggest letting a friend look over your posts as they contain quite a few grammar errors. I would suggest going over the sub-topic of how does Pakistani culture enable men to do these things? Especially seeing that the mother of the victim pardoned her daughter’s assailant.

    Here are some links that pertain to that:

    https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/to-be-a-woman-in-pakistan-six-stories-of-abuse-shame-and-survival/255585/
    https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/pakistan-tops-in-holding-biases-against-women-un-report/articleshow/74568595.cms

    -Aleah

  2. Hey Wayne,
    This was trully shocking information, and thank you so much for sharing this as it is important to know the privlidges we have living in a country that respects women and other modesty choices.

    I was curious to see what UNICEF is doing about this as I hoped they would be involved with an international matter that Is on this scale. Thankfully I was able to find some articles on UNICEF that might help with your future research.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/unicefusa/2018/12/10/women-and-girls-are-fighting-for-their-rights–and-their-lives/?sh=3c815e651eda

    – Sanam M.

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