Islamabad confronts honour killing 'shame'

Karachi: Ayesha Baloch was dragged to a field and as her brother-in-law held her down her husband sat astride her legs and slit her upper lip and nostril with a knife.

They call such assaults on women a matter of "honour" in some Pakistani communities, but for the majority it is a source of national shame.

Married less than two months ago in Pakistan's central district of Dera Ghazi Khan, Baloch, 18, was accused of having sexual relations with another man before marriage.

"First they tortured me and beat me. I started screaming. Akbar then caught my hands and pulled me to the ground. Essa sat on my legs and cut my nose and lips," Baloch mumbled through her bandages at hospital in the city of Multan. "I was bleeding and started screaming after they fled on a motorcycle. People heard me and rescued me and took me to my mother's home."

At least she wasn't killed. More than 1,000 women are slain by their husbands or relatives, and that is just the reported, not actual, number of "honour killings" in Pakistan each year.

Many killings are planned rather than done in rage, and the motive often has more to do with money or settling scores.

The same week, a world away from Baloch's village, social activists, parliamentarians and community leaders gathered in the suburban, leafy capital of Islamabad to launch a campaign "We Can End Honour Killing".

Changing mindset

Farhana Faruqi Stocker, country director of international aid agency Oxfam, said some 10,000 people called "change-makers" had signed up so far.

But Stocker knows two constituencies will be vital to the campaign's success.

"The mindset of legislators has to be changed in order for good legislation to come out," Stocker said.

But she is well aware that there are many remote rural areas of Pakistan where maulvis, or clerics, exert more influence than local government and federal law. "In order to bring change, we have to engage with clerics."