n the Middle Ages those considered mad were treated in several ways that appear unreasonable today. One way was torturing them. In his famous thesis, Madness and Civilisation, Foucault elaborated on the method of alienating the mad. The suspects were loaded on a ship, referred to as Stultifera Navis, and sent on a sea voyage. Whoever survived was considered cured.

The absurdity ended after psychology and psychoanalysis provided reasonable solutions to this problem. Before modern psychology, stigmatising the mad, alienating them, and, in extreme cases, killing them was common. The practice stopped after Freud explored the connection between a man’s psychological and physiological dimensions. The new discourse provided a rational alternative to the treatments practiced in the Middle Ages.

The honour discourse in the so-called honour killings is an insane and morally corrupt reasoning to kill a woman to please her family.

To understand the interplay of Pakistani society’s structure and ‘honour’ killings, we need to look at a few cases.

In a case reported on November 24, an 18-year-old girl was murdered in Kohistan district by four men, including her father. When police arrested the culprits, they said a photo of her with a boy had gone viral on social media. They said they had they killed her on the order of a village elder. They said they had killed her because she had brought shame to the family and soiled their ‘honour.’ Later, it was found that the photo had been doctored.

A few years ago, Qandeel Baloch, was killed by his brother, who said he had killed her for ‘honour.’ Qandeel had been outspoken about women’s rights and their denial in society. The killer, Waseem Azeem, her brother, confessed to the murder of his sister, who he said had brought shame to the family, which was unacceptable to them.

According to a Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, 218 women in the Punjab, 157 in Sindh, 92 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 43 in Balochistan, and 4 in Islamabad, were killed in the name of honour in 2022.

In some cases ‘honour’ is invoked in defence of rape. Mukhtaran Mai was a victim of such a crime. More recently, in Mirpurkhas, 20 men kidnapped two teenagers, amid a clash between tribes, and sexually assaulted them. ‘Honour,’ invoked frequently in Pakistani society, has been used to justify a lot of human rights abuses. Women have been disproportionately the victims.

Let us look at the statistics.

According to a Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, 218 women in the Punjab, 157 in Sindh, 92 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 43 in Balochistan and four in Islamabad were killed for ‘honour’ in 2022. In 2021, 147 women had been killed in the Punjab, 226 in Sindh, 146 in the KP and 23 in Balochistan. All told, there were 514 victims in 2020, 542 in 2021 and 609 victims in 2022.

The statistics show that the insane and morally corrupt reasoning is rampant in the country. Psychology saved a lot of people who might have been killed after being found ‘mad.’ It needs to do the same to stop ‘honour’ killings in Pakistan. The society needs a rational discourse to understand the socio-political mechanism of ‘honour’

The interplay of conservative and liberal ideas makes the ‘honour’ discourse convoluted. The traditional mindset places family above an individual’s right to pursuit of happiness. No wonder it also rejects many elements of the modern state and relies on the panchayat and jirga. Such a mindset is an obstacle to the understanding of the working of a modern state.

There is a pressing need to evaluate the socio-cultural gap and develop a discourse to make individuals understand the functioning of the modern world. Pakistan does have laws and policies to counter such crimes. However, it also needs to combat this problem at the micro level by developing a discourse to help people understand the imperatives of the modern world.

The writer a research associate at the Institute of Social and Cultural Studies. He is currently an editorial board member at Folio Books. He is also working with LokSujag on various projects.