This is truly horrendous and almost beyond description … the BBC reports …
The girl, known only as Anusha, was found to have burns over 60% of her body. Her father Muhammad Zafar told the BBC what happened:
“There was a boy who came by on a motorcycle. She (Anusha) turned to look at him twice. I told her before not to do that, it’s wrong. People talk about us because our older daughter was the same way,” he said.
Her mother Zaheen described the aftermath: “She said ‘I didn’t do it on purpose. I won’t look again.’ By then I had already thrown the acid. It was her destiny to die this way.”
It gets worse, a lot worse …
After the attack, the parents kept the girl in agony at home for hours, the BBC reported, denying her any medical care. The father now claims, though, that he tried to “wipe” the acid off his daughter, and that it was his wife who escalated the situation from abuse to murder.
They apparently told the curious neighbors that their daughter had tried to kill herself in the hours between the attack, and when they finally went to the hospital.
The BBC was able to see the house where the “honor killing” occurred, and recorded the warm welcome the father received when he returned home. His other children, perhaps too young to understand why their sister died, are seen crying and hugging their father.
This is just one tragic case.
According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, at least 943 women were killed in the name of honor last year. Only 20 of the women were reported to have been given medical care before they died, the report said. The real toll is believed to be higher because many of the crimes go unreported.
Throughout the year, women were callously killed in the name of honor when they went against family wishes in any way, or even on the basis of suspicion that they did so.
Nobody talks about the elephant in the room here, the term used is “honour killing”, but the reality is that when you embrace a system of thought that deems woman to be inferior and almost the equivalent of chattel, then there are consequences – this is one of them.
The Misogynist ideas at the root of all this need to be vigorously challenged.