ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-N plans to pass long-delayed legislation against ‘honour killings’ within weeks, Maryam Nawaz, daughter of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on Wednesday.
The move came in the wake of the high-profile murder of outspoken social media star Qandeel Baloch. The bill would go before a parliamentary committee as early as Thursday, she said. The government had faced mounting pressure to pass the law against murders carried out by the people professing to be acting in ‘defence of the honour’ of their family.
The law would also remove the loophole that allows other family members of the victims to pardon the killer. The brother of Qandeel who had been arrested in connection with her being strangled to death told a news conference that he was incensed by her often risqué posts on social media.
Some 500 women are killed each year in Pakistan at the hands of family members over perceived damage to ‘honour’ that can involve eloping, fraternising with men or any other infraction against the ‘conservative values’ that govern women’s modesty.
Maryam said that the government wanted to pass the law unanimously and had been negotiating with the religious parties in parliament as well. “We have finalised the draft law in the light of negotiations,” she said. “The final draft will be presented to a committee of joint session of parliament on July 21 for consideration and approval.”
She added that once the parliamentary committee approved the bill then it would be presented for a vote in a couple of weeks before a joint session of parliament. The main religious parties have traditionally opposed legislation empowering women but a spokesman for Jamaat-i-Islami, one of the two major religious parties in the parliament said that his party would not oppose the bill.
The upper house of parliament passed the bill in 2015 but it lapsed after the government failed to put it up for a vote in the lower house. In a rare move this week, the government became a complainant in the police case against Qandeel’s brother accused of her murder, transforming it into a crime against the state and thereby barring her family from pardoning their son.
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, whose documentary on ‘honour killings,’ “A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness” won an Oscar this year said, “This mentality that you can get away with murder in the name of honour has to be done away with… I am hopeful that this law will pass but the change in mindset will talk so much longer. I think Qandeel Baloch’s murder is the tipping point.”
