A baseline study conducted by National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW) and National Rural Support Programme (NRSP) has revealed that only 2 percent cases of honour crimes are reported while 98 percent cases remain unreported.
The study was conducted under a pilot project "End Honour Crimes" to monitor the implementation of Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2004 in district Rajanpur, Punjab and district Mirpurkhas, Sindh with the support of UN Trust Fund.
The project was initiated to assess and develop capacity of public and private organisations and raise awareness among the local communities about the law, acts, human and women rights regarding the issue of honour crime.
It was observed that the honour crimes are on the rise in Rajanpur and Mirpurkhas and only 10 percent of the officials of law enforcing agencies know about the existence of law against honour crimes.
The study showed that zero percent of the community leaders including religious leaders, know about the presence of any such law and almost equal percentage is aware of the term `honour crime.' The study says that level of awareness was found highest among lawyers but it was also less than 50 percent.
The major causes of honour crimes include early marriages, wattasatta, forced marriages, love marriages, property disputes, political conflicts, poverty and lack of education, the study said.
It highlighted the prevalence of domestic violence, karokari, wani/sawara, suicide, murder, sale, physical punishment, mental torture and sexual harassment in those areas. It said 87 percent affected persons of the crimes are women while 13 percent are men. The training was imparted to the community members including rural man and women, local religious leaders, teacher, representatives of law enforcement agencies, judiciary, medical staff and media.
At the end, a national interface was arranged for policy formulation with the key stakeholders to end honour crimes by implementation of the law.
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