Mir Zain Mahmood
Honour killings in Pakistan continue to represent a deep-rooted human rights crisis sustained by patriarchal norms, weak law enforcement and pervasive social acceptance. Although official statistics vary, the scale of the issue remains alarming. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) reported405 cases of honour killing in 2024, while media-based estimates from recent years indicate a range of approximately 226 to 470 cases an-nually. Human rights organizations consistently emphasize that these figures capture only a fraction of real incidents. Many killings are hidden, framed as suicides or accidents or re-solved privately through informal justice mechanisms, leaving them unrecorded and beyond state scrutiny.
Honour killings—also referred to as shame killings—are typically framed as acts committed to restore a family’s honour. Internationally condemned, they disproportionately target women accused of violating expected moral or cultural norms. Although men are occasionally victimized, the dominant form is gendered violence against women, revealing how notions of honour are strategically linked to female behavior and physical autonomy. This feminization of honour reinforces a patriarchal social order wherein women are treated as symbols of collective reputation rather than individual human beings with rights.
Over the last decade, legal reforms have sought to curb the impunity associated with these crimes. A major turning point came in 2016, when Pakistan passed federal legislation aimed at closing the notorious “forgiveness loophole.” Under previous legal provisions, offenders could be pardoned by the victim’s family, which often meant they escaped punishment, since killers were frequently relatives of the victim. The revised law mandates life imprisonment for murder committed in the name of honour, regardless of familial forgiveness. Yet, the law’s practical impact remains limited. Low conviction rates persist due to corrupt policing prac-tices, compromised investigations, local political influence and the continued authority of al-ternative justice systems such as jirgas and panchayats, which often encourage settlements favoring perpetrators.
Interpreting trends requires caution. Different organizations rely on varied definitions, time frames and methods for categorizing such cases. Older NGO and HRCP reports from the 2000s occasionally estimated numbers reaching into the thousands, while more recent offi-cial statistics report several hundred annually. Divergent provincial reporting systems and widespread misclassification make exact comparisons difficult. Nonetheless, what remains clear is that honour killings are not isolated events; they are nationwide, systemic and par-ticularly concentrated in rural areas of Punjab and Sindh, where patriarchal norms retain strong influence. Accurate assessment must therefore recognize the limits of available data. Conservative of-ficial figures should be presented alongside broader contextual estimates from credible sources to approximate the magnitude of the phenomenon. Only by acknowledging these gaps can a realistic understanding emerge.
The persistence of honour killings demonstrates that legal reform alone cannot dismantle a culture of gender-based violence. Sustainable change requires long-term collaboration be-tween policymakers, civil rights organizations and communities. Strengthening women’s so-cioeconomic empowerment, challenging discriminatory local justice systems and promoting social education that redefines honour as a matter of dignity rather than control are essential steps. While high-profile cases and new reports show signs of gradual progress, transforma-tive change will depend on dismantling the patriarchal structures that allow these killings to be justified, tolerated and hidden.
—The writer is associated with the Aitcheson College, Lahore.
