The gruesome murder of Noor Muqaddam, the daughter of a former ambassador for Pakistan, has left everyone crestfallen. No one would have expected that a bright, smiling face would be prematurely snuffed out in such extreme anguish and pain. Everyone is looking for answers.

Was this the result of widespread misogyny, a sense of entitlement that comes with wealth and power, a criminal justice system widely seen as favouring the rich and the powerful, or an instance of parenting gone terribly wrong?

Many commentators in the mainstream and social media look at the murder of Noor as the murder of a woman committed by a man. As a corollary they attribute it to the patriarchal nature of the society. The patriarchy in Pakistan has also come under the spotlight recently in other contexts. When the supporters and detractors of the Aurat Marches were busy trading barbs, sly innuendos and loud bickering confused the meaning of the patriarchal system. It may be instructive to take a detour to understand what patriarchy is and how it is conceived in Pakistan.

Patriarchy is a system of relationships, beliefs and values embedded in political, social, and economic systems that structure gender inequality between men and women. Attributes seen as feminine or pertaining to women are undervalued, while attributes regarded as masculine or pertaining to men are privileged. Patriarchal relations structure both the private and public spheres, ensuring that men dominate both. Feminist scholarship also theorises linkages between patriarchy and capitalism, colonialism and nationalism,

In patriarchal societies, women are excluded from political, social, and economic positions of power; women find themselves paid less for work of equal value; and women are more likely to experience poverty, less access to resources, goods and services. While individual women may experience success in various spheres, women as a distinctive social group are generally disadvantaged in these ways.

The Pakistani characterisation of the patriarchal system is more reductionist. Pakistani scholarship sees patriarchy in its more obvious symptoms: when a woman introduces herself as “I’m Mrs X”, it is considered a negation of both her legal and physical identity. When a woman wears a hijab or a niqab despite greater economic opportunities, it is considered as giving in to patriarchal values.

Of course, Pakistani scholarship on the patriarchal system is not always oversimplified. However, calls for greater female participation in the public sphere and greater political participation as an antidote to patriarchy are overshadowed by a realignment in the duties related to household chores.

The real problem lies in a widespread misunderstanding that a patriarchal system is prevalent only in Pakistan, or by extension, in societies at the early stages of economic development. It may be claimed without fear of contradiction that patriarchy rules in almost all societies. An excerpt from The Guardian says it all, “In Britain, with its equality legislation, two women are killed each week by a male partner, and the violence begins in girlhood: it was reported last month that one in 16 US girls was forced into their first experience of sex. The best-paid jobs are mainly held by men; the unpaid labour mainly falls to women. Globally, 82 percent of ministerial positions are held by men. Whole fields of expertise are predominantly male. These include physical sciences (and women garner less recognition for their contributions – they have received just 2.77 percent of the Nobel prizes for sciences.”

Granted that patriarchy is prevalent in most of the world, let’s assume that patriarchy shows a gradient and is found in its more virulent form in certain countries, including Pakistan. Now, coming back to the fundamental question of the link between the patriarchal system and the higher risk it poses to women’s lives, the data paints a stunning picture in which the patriarchal system appears to be better at protecting women’s lives.

When some sections of the media in Pakistan project Noor’s murder as emblematic of the typical Pakistani patriarchal male attitude, they miss an essential point. According to a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report, the share of female intentional homicide victims in Pakistan is 23.3 percent. It means that three men lose their lives on average against every single case of female homicide.

More women are killed in the Western democracies with a high level of human and economic development and greater freedoms for women than in the countries generally dubbed as patriarchal.

Western Europe is considered one of the most developed regions in terms of women’s rights and with patriarchal values mostly subdued. Surprisingly, the share of female intentional homicide victims in Western Europe is significantly higher than in Pakistan. According to the UNODC report referred to earlier, the share of a female intentional homicide victims is 35 percent in the Netherlands, 38 percent in France, 43 percent in Belgium, 47 percent in Germany and 50 percent in Switzerland. Ironically, these countries are considered to be the safest places for women.

Conversely, the countries characterised as deeply patriarchal have significantly lower female homicide rates. For example, the share of a female intentional homicide victims is 12 percent in Egypt, 14 percent in Uganda, 15 percent in Sudan, and 16 percent in Congo.

Surprisingly, the countries which have the highest homicide rates have the lowest rates of female homicide. For example, in Brazil, 30 persons per 100,000 were killed in 2020, but the female intentional homicide rate was 10 percent. In Colombia, 26 persons per 100,000 population were killed in 2020, but only 8 percent of the murdered peoplewere women. In Panama, the homicide rate was ten persons per 100,000 population in 2020, but the share of female homicide victims was only 5 percent.

Based on this data, an unmistakable picture emerges: in relative terms, more women are killed in the Western democracies with a high level of human and economic development and greater freedoms for women than in the countries generally dubbed as patriarchal. This implies that holding patriarchy responsible for violence against women is factually incorrect and detracts from the real causes of violence against women.

Contracry to the widespread view that honour killing is unique to Pakistan and some developing countries, violence against women by a family member is significantly higher than violence against men in many developed countries. A study in the advanced economies found that in 60 percent of cases of intentional homicide of women, the perpetrator was a relative of a victim. These advanced economies include Canada, Finland, UK, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Spain.

It is not the least helpful to attribute the violence against women to wrong causes because it leaves the real issues unaddressed. There is reason to believe that patriarchy was not the real issue in the sad demise of Noor. For starters, Noor did not face the limitations that are generally associated with patriarchy. The reasons are not difficult to comprehend.

Family values in Pakistan show a wide diversity and are critically dependent on the educational and socio-economic status of the household head. The typical Pakistani woman faces several restrictions on her social interaction, educational trajectory, career path, choice of marriage partner, reproductive decisions after marriage, and her role in household-level decision-making.

Noor was an educated woman and had lived abroad thanks to her father’s job. Given the information gleaned from social media, she apparently enjoyed enough freedom to participate in social gatherings. In a nutshell, she was not the type of personality shaped by the typical patriarchal values of Pakistan.

Similarly, if we look at the life circumstances of the perpetrator of the crime, his parents belonged to notable business families. Since the perpetrator’s mother was also running a business, we should not expect that the perpetrator’s family espoused a typical Pakistani patriarchal mindset. So, we have to move beyond a convenient characterisation of patriarchy as the driver of violence against women.

The state of the rule of law and criminal justice system might have a clue to massive violence in the society. Global data also points to a strong association between the number of homicide cases and the criminal justice system’s effectiveness. According to the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index, El Salvador, Honduras, and Venezuela were some of the worst countries in terms of the criminal justice system’s effectiveness. These three countries ranked 116^th, 123^rd, and 128^th in a sample of 128 countries, respectively.

Not surprisingly, these are the countries with the highest homicide rates, with El Salvador having 83 cases of intentional homicide, Honduras 57 cases, and Venezuela 56 cases per 100,000 population in 2020. Conversely, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Norway, and the Netherlands had some of the most effective criminal justice systems. The homicide rate in all these countries was less than 1 per 100,000.

The takeaway is that we should improve our criminal justice system. Contrary to Pakistan’ rebuttal of the American report on Pakistan’s judicial system, Pakistan ranked 120^th, 118^th and 98^th in a sample of 128 countries in terms of rule of law, civil justice, and criminal justice, respectively. Overhauling the justice system is the key to reducing violence against women, men and children.

The writer is an assistant professor at the Department of Economics at COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus