In traditional and tribal communities’ people are held together by culture, beliefs and shared values. Under an overarching ambit of an enforced collective conscience, deviations from these norms are punished. Eminent French sociologist Emile Durkheim is known as the father of sociology. He described it as mechanical solidarity.
This, he asserted, is a community where kinship bonds determine social actions. Such a society enforces conformity to group norms as an imperative for survival. This, in turn, stifles development and leads to the oppression of individuals, violence and conflict.
With time, examples of communities based purely on mechanical solidarity are becoming rare. This is because with education and industrialisation, societies have evolved into heterogeneous ones.
We have the distinction of electing the late Benazir Bhutto, a woman, to the highest office of this land. This is something even those in the US have been unable to achieve. Does this symbolise our reverence for the female gender of this land? Nothing could be further from reality. They continue to be the victims of discrimination, brutal excesses and manic chauvinism.
Professor Diana Russell was a leading authority on violence against women. She coined the term femicide, describing it as the misogynistic killings of women by men. The motivation, she asserted, was hatred, contempt, pleasure or a sense of ownership of women.
Honour killing is an oxymoron in its most loathsome form. There is no honour in taking a human life. When a demented individual or a horde of them takes upon themselves to be judge, jury and executioner to end a woman’s life, the travesty should not be labelled an honour killing. It is femicide, an abomination.
Vani, sura, karo-kari, marriage to the Quran, forced marriages, disfiguring girls by acid, forcing women to parade naked, rapes and femicide could well be the macabre practices of a pagan era.
In large swathes of Pakistan, we still have communities forced to conform to these horrific excesses. The phenomenon of deadly guardianship is also prevalent. There are no effective mechanisms to protect a girl from her family, even when the latter poses a direct threat to the girl’s life.
Usually perpetrated in an environment of silence and complicity, femicide remains a gruesome social issue in Pakistan. It is also a stark indicator epitomising our dysfunctional prevention and accountability systems.
It continues to brazenly portray the unchecked dominance of brutal cultural traditions over rule of law. According to the Sustainable Social Development Organization, 547 cases of femicide were reported in 2024 alone. Their conviction rate was below two per cent; a scathing indictment of our criminal justice system.
All our governance systems have remained oblivious to these horrific practices because tribal and feudal chiefs and their untouchable ilk remain a part and parcel of the enabling system. Our power-elite, the purveyor of our dilapidating status quo, dare not antagonise them.
The stranglehold chieftains have over their tribes, particularly in Balochistan and Sindh, is not for the faint hearted. The lucky ones are thrown into private jails, the unlucky ones are brutally tortured, thrown into wells, murdered or buried alive.
The volume of reported cases is staggering, that they are the tip of the iceberg that goes unseen and unreported, shows the scale of this monumental atrocity. The magnitude of these grave abuses increases manifold by the audacity of the perpetrators.
It was in the Senate that Senator Israr Ullah Zehri called the burying alive of three teenage girls and two women in Baba Kot, a remote village of Balochistan, a tribal custom. The girls wanted to marry the men of their choice. The women met the same fate while trying to save them. “These” proclaimed a bristling Zehri, “are centuries-old traditions and I will continue to defend them”.
Reportedly, the girls and women were abducted in government vehicles and the killing was overseen by a tribal chief who was the brother of a provincial minister. Another reported Vani case saw as many as 13 girls, between the age of 4 and 16, bartered to settle a blood feud allegedly between two sub-clans of the Bugti tribe.
To vanquish this hydra, its enabling props have to be removed. This calls for a multifaceted approach that does away with parallel legal systems and rule of law’s submission to the high and mighty. Exemplary punishment, education and public awareness campaigns can help in eliminating this scourge.
At risk grls/women should be provided free and specialised legal assistance in collaboration with independent organisations and agencies. A 24-hour free hotline should be operationalised to receive complaints of gender-based threats and violence. Specialised police and prosecutorial units should effectively manage such cases.
Qualified female personnel in police stations, prosecutorial offices and shelters should be appointed to ensure a safe and trustworthy environment that encourages women and girls to report their grievances. As it is, many women and girls endure sexual violence or threats but hesitate to come forward fearing for their own lives.
The perpetrators of this horrific femicide are running an unchallenged parallel system. It hands out inhuman punishments and has its verdicts summarily executed without any fear of reprisals or punitive action. In doing so, they explicitly showcase their aura of unaccountable power.
Individual cases of femicide too are occurring almost on a daily basis. The foremost reason is the system’s quadriplegic attitude towards it. Iron hands only burst forth against mere mortals that are the impoverished masses.
Islam has mandated equality between women and men. This can never be achieved till all forms of violence against women are eradicated. As long as these inhuman excesses continue, what could be a more hideous disfigurement of Pakistan?
The writer is a freelance contributor. He can be reached at: miradnanaziz@gmail.com
