Shakira Nandini says: May 2, 2016 at 2:12 pm
Stop Karo-Kari: A highly ritualized form of Honor Killing
Author: Shakira Khan
Part I:
Karo-kari is a cruel practice perpetrated especially in the province of Sind in Pakistan. Here, I would like to summarize the practice.
Karo is a black man, and Kari a black woman, where “black” means morally corrupt. It is a highly ritualized form of woman killing.
To declare a woman a Kari, there has to be a Karo, a black man, but the statistical data shows that although both are declared black, in 90 percent of the cases, it is the woman who is killed. The Karo either escapes or bargains for his life by paying money. There are necessary rituals, which have to be performed to validate this process. The accusation has to be made in advance vociferously. The couple is declared Karo-Kari in the village. This job is always done by the men of woman’s family, especially the husband. Her grave is prepared in advance. There is no final bath or funeral prayer for her. No one is allowed to cry over her dead body. The village gives respect to the murderer. Separate graveyards for the Kari women have been established in the province of Sind in Pakistan.
Lately, the patterns have changed in the custom of Karo-Kari. In many cases, there is no advance accusation. Before, mostly the wives were declared Kari, and now any woman of the family can be accused as a Kari immediately after her murder. This custom, in fact, has become an excuse for the murder of helpless women for reasons completely unconnected to the victims.
The following are few situations in which women have been denounced as Karis:
• When a husband killed a man of the enemy tribe for whatever reason, he would come home and kill his wife and declare both the victims as Karo-Kari. This declaration helped him escape a severe punishment and the village would regard him with respect. In such cases sometimes, the woman had not even seen the man with whom she was accused of misconduct.
• During a tribal/family feud, if the rival groups’ man was killed accidentally, his body would be brought to the house immediately and any woman available on the premises (wife, daughter, sister-in-law or mother) would be killed immediately and it would be declared a Karo-Kari case.
•Material reasons: Husbands (now in many cases, uncles and brothers) would declare woman Kari for “misbehaving” along with a rich man in the village. The husband could then extract money to pardon the accused man and then get rid of the wife/sister, etc. by killing her. The woman’s share of property then went to him as well.
• In the villages where men pay bride price, the situation is worse for women. Once sold to a man they cannot ask for divorce if he abuses them. She is the man’s property. If she protests, she is not divorced or sent back to her parents because the parents will have nothing to do with her after selling her off into marriage. If she protests, she is killed in the name of Karo-Kari. Sometimes the Karo is from another village and no one has ever seen him.
• In the rural areas of Pakistan, especially among the land-owning feudal class, a daughter’s marriage is a well-calculated affair. To keep the property together, marriages are arranged within the family on the basis of exchange (watta-satta). In such cases, if the daughter or sister does not want to marry the person chosen by the family men, she faces dire consequences. Her defiance results in her death. Due to her refusal, she is labeled as disobedient. If she shows interest in getting married to someone of her own choice, and against the wishes of the family men, trouble begins. If she is determined to assert her right and gets married through the civil court, she has to face death. The crime of the girls in such cases is disobedience.
• In the areas where a bride price is set, young girls at the tender ages of 12 or 13 are sold to men of 60 or 70 years of age because the latter are willing to pay high prices. If a young girl protests, or runs away to avoid the impending marriage, she is murdered for being disobedient.
These are some of the flimsy excuses upon which women are butchered mercilessly, and in many cases, their own mothers and sisters are involved in such brutality as well.
Karo-kari is not synonymous with honor killing; it is simply classified under the aegis of honor killing, but recently the term has become equivalent with the whole concept of honor killing. There are many other acts of honor killing where the woman does not have to be branded as a kari before she is murdered. Some of these cases are included in the AI Report. But recently, all women who have seized their courage and acted upon their basic human rights and have thus “violated the honor of their families” have been branded as Karis, and their relatives are in the process of hunting them down.
I hope to work with you all readers to stop this Karo-kari practice in Pakistan. -Shakira Khan
Part II
Destiny of a woman: Honor Killing
I am trying to put some light on Karo Kari ritual (Honor Killing) which is a very serious and hot issue at the moment.
In fact, no one is raising their voices against it, just quietly watching whatever is happening. There are so many religious leaders out there but how many will try to raise their voice against this ritual?
TV channels and newspapers are only showing and talking about the incidents. Can it be stopped just by presenting these incidents as news only? No! Absolutely not.
If 18 crore Pakistanis move forward together to stop this, there is no way this cannot be stopped.
There is help available and there are laws. But in spite of all this, some adamant and shameless people are still following this practice.
These incidents are increasing in Pakistan day by day. There is not a single day when this is not happening in one of the parts of Pakistan.
Print media and electronic media are making the headlines of these incidents.
Pakistan is a Muslim country and this type of incidents and crime put a question for 8 crore citizen of the country.
Do our religious leaders and Muslims have become so careless that they don’t even want to take any step against this ritual?
We live in a Muslim country and there shouldn’t be any incidents like this but I am so sorry to say that the women are still being killed in the name of honor. It’s a shame for us.
No doubt adultery is a sin but does the brutal murder of a woman is the right punishment for this sin?
Blaming innocent men or women is a sin too.
When someone does a crime, the criminal has to be punished by law only not that the civilians will take the law in their hands to punish the criminal.
In our country, the Karo Kari ritual is getting stronger day by day and lots of innocents are being punished.
If someone blames a Muslim woman with adultery, then one has to bring 4 witnesses to prove the adultery. If the person cannot bring the witness he should be punished under the Islam law code 80. Even though this will be just the worldly punishment, he will be finally punished at the hell as well.
How come people who give the punishment of Karo Kari forget that she also came from a mother’s womb. She is the daughter of a mother too.
God has given the honor to a woman only that there is heaven under her feet. How can we forget that?
Women have been given the equal rights in our religion and they shouldn’t be ill-treated at all.
What kind of inheritance we are passing to our future generation? I hope, one day, our future generation will realize this fact and fix it.
After so many sacrifices on the name of Islam, we earned this Pakistan. What for? Just to kill our own daughters and daughter-in-laws at the name of Karo Kari. Everything is happening in front of our eyes and we are just watching quietly. We read/watch these news, feel sorry for a while and after few days we forget and get busy with our daily life.
My question is for every citizen of Pakistan, killing a human at the name of honor isn’t a crime?
Do the parents raise and educate their daughters so one day someone kills them at the name of honor? Does Islam teach this?
Paying attention to this issue is the responsibility of every human being.
I appeal to the government of Pakistan that they should take strict actions against this ritual and create new laws and pass new bills. Whoever is involve in this Karo Kari punishment ritual should be punished strictly by law so the future generations will not dare to do this.
To end this problem from its root, it is very important that in every village and in every city there should be the committees governed by the learned people, who have deep knowledge of Islam and who are fully aware of Karo Kari ritual. In spite of this, if someone does this crime, he should be punished under the law. -Shakira Khan
Shakira Khan is a model and dancer settled in Portugal. Her father was formerly from Bangalore, India and mother was based in Lahore, Pakistan. She was born in Lahore and brought up in Russia. Later, she moved with her family to Philippine for a higher secondary education. Shakira’s parents got separated when she was only 12. She started her Career in 2001 from Singapore as a model and also appeared in dance programs. Later she joined as an actress/dancer and model in Svět modelek, Czech Republic. She is happily married to a doctor and has a son.
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Mac,
Here how Hindu community is referred by you just to hide henious crimes being conducted in the name of islam against females. Islam is a notorious religion in the matter of mutta, oral tripple talak, keep 4 wives, halala,taqiyya doctrine,72 virgins for terrorists in heavn who are killed, FMG, 4 eye witnesses to prove rape etc.
A man in Pakistan shot and killed his two sisters to protect his family’s “honor,” he claims, after his family forgave him for killing his mother, leaving him free from charges. This incident was one of a string of such “honor killings” committed recently in the country.
Authorities said Muhammad Asif shot his sisters Fozia Bibi, 22, and Suriya Bibi, 24, because he believed they were having affairs. Police officer Tariq Mehmood explained, “Muhammad Asif killed his two sisters last night over their character and lifestyle, which he didn’t like,” adding, “Fozia was shot in her chest and Suriya was shot in her waist.”
The police also said he killed his mother five years ago, but they released him after the family pardoned him. A provision in the law allows this “following the payment of blood money.” They did not release any details about that killing.
In a separate incident, a man named Rehmat shot and killed his 18-year-old daughter, Komal, after she left the house without his permission. Her mother Razia said, “He went to this room, brought out a gun and shot his daughter dead. He then fled from the scene.”
The police said he did it for his family’s “honor.”
On Sunday, Pakistani film director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won an Oscar for her documentary A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, which is about a girl who survived an honor killing. Statistics have found that between 500-1,000 women die in honor killings every year. She met with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who “vowed to eradicate the ‘evil’ of honour killings in Pakistan.” Honor killings have long plagued the country.
“This is totally against Islam and anyone who does this must be punished and punished very severely,” Sharif said. “Changing the law is something that needs to be done at the earliest possibility.”
On Monday, a court sentenced two brothers to death after they killed “their sister and brother-in-law in 2009 because the couple married without family consent.”
In May 2014, a family stoned to death a pregnant woman outside a courthouse because she married the man she loved. According to the Associated Press:
Nearly 20 members of Parveen’s extended family, including her father and brothers, had waited outside the building that houses the high court of Lahore. As the couple walked up to the main gate, the relatives fired shots in the air and tried to snatch her from Iqbal, her lawyer said.
When she resisted, her father, brothers and other relatives started beating her, eventually pelting her with bricks from a nearby construction site, according to Mujahid and Iqbal, the slain woman’s husband.
A year earlier, a man killed his two stepsisters because they were caught dancing together in rain.
“Elders in the town raised objections on the character of these girls,” exclaimed human rights activist Atiya Jehan. “When the footage was circulated via mobile phones, it caused outrage in the conservative Pakistani town.”
Seems pakistanis yet couldn’t adopt islam fully, still ancient hindu(sindhu) practice runs through their viens. Shame.