The Indian Express brings you the clippings from the Pak mediaWomen's rights in `primitive' PakDAWN: The disclosure by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) on Thursday that there has been a significant increase in violence against women in and around the Lahore region in the first eleven months of 1999, is cause for serious concern. In its report entitled the ``Dimensions of Violence'', the HRCP reveals that 266 women were murdered during the period in so-called honour killings, while 163 died in "stove-burst" incidents in which women are often burnt alive for a variety of reasons, including dowry-related disputes, and are shown to be victims of unexplained stove explosions.What is equally chilling is the fact that 15 per cent of those killed were young girls, mostly newly married in the case of the stove deaths, and their murderers were close family members, mostly brothers or husbands. What is more disturbing is the fact that out of this number, no more than 35 persons have been arrested by the police for these fatalities and in a quarter of the cases, no FIR was registered after the murder of the women. Honour killings and stove-burst deaths are not restricted to Lahore, or for that matter, to Punjab, alone. Between October 1998 and September 1999, 595 people in Sindh were murdered in honour killings alone.The killing of women over domestic issues, a tradition that illustrates how primitive a large part of our society is, encompasses all of Pakistan. With a government that has publicly stated it will work to promote and protect the rights of women, this is no more an issue that can be swept under the carpet as has been done by successive governments. As other countries strive to better their record on human rights, Pakistan seems to be moving backwards by condoning cold-blooded murders in the name of honour and, at the same time, being overly sensitive to international criticism of the inhuman practice.The practice is in total violation of basic human rights and is not at all part of the teachings of Islam, as some of its perpetrators would have us believe. For its part, the government is more alive to the criticism that comes from all over the world than with the number and frequency, or the sheer inhumanity, of such killings.
