Why people kill for 'honour'

NEW DELHI: Honour killings are widespread occurrences in Pakistan, but when Pakistani model Quandeel Baloch became of victim of the practice , an entire nation's conscience was shocked. While Pakistan's Human Rights Commission says that over 2,000 women and children were killed in the name of 'honour' in 2014 and 2015, such crimes aren't unique to our northwestern neighbour.
The sustained prevalence of such crimes begs the question: why do 'honour' killings even take place? What could possess a person to commit fratricide or even infanticide in the name of a quality that has such noble connotations? Here are some possible answers, based on media reports.
Roles rather than individuals
Writing for The National Post, columnist Barbara Kay says that in the Middle East and South Asia, violent acts perpetrated in the name of 'honour' are a "conspiratorial form of sexual terrorism". She says that societies where honour killings are rife are "invariably" patriarchal ones, in which a family's social standing is linked to the virtue of its women. Kay adds that while honour-motivated crimes are now "an overwhelming feature of Muslim countries, sometimes entrenched in law", history shows that ineffective law enforcement, dowries, and inheritances have more to do with such acts than the influence of a particular religion. After all, as Kay notes, honor culture has been a feature of non-Muslim communities such as Wild West cowboys, Border country herdsmen in Britain, and Arab Bedouins (not to mention non-Muslim communities in India).
In addition, she suggests that people who live in an 'honour culture' think of themselves as roles rather than as individuals, and these roles - son, brother, father, daughter, sister or mother - determine their responsibilities and their actions. If any member of such a culture chooses to put his (or her) individual interests over the role assigned to him, he endangers "the smooth functioning of the family collective." So, a dangerous mixture of collectivist thinking, concerns about social standing and family assets, and an undependable legal judicial system may be the driving force behind the profusion of honour killings.
Repression, and the value of a woman's life
Steve Taylor, senior psychology lecturer at Leeds Beckett University, also says status plays a role, noting - in a post for Psychology Today - that honour killings could be motivated by "a constant pressure to adhere to strict social conventions for fear of losing face, and of being ostracized by the rest of the community." He also has two other explanations. The first is the idea that honour killings of women may not be seen as serious crimes in cultures that do not assign great value to female lives - ones that practice female infanticide, for instance. The second is the notion that sexual repression causes people to punish their own children for natural human behaviour like love and sex.
"It’s difficult to imagine honor killings taking place if these cultures saw sex as a natural and health impulse, where sex before marriage was acceptable and there was no pressure for girls to remain virgins till marriage – just as it’s impossible to imagine them taking place if females were valued as highly as males," he concludes.
It may be that all these factors play a role in honour-motivated crime, albeit to varying degrees in different cases. What we know for sure, is that these horrific practices continue to bedevil societies such as India and Pakistan. Even people with fame and money are not invulnerable: the death of Qandeel Baloch, whose brother drugged and strangled her to death - stands testament to that uncomfortable truth.
With inputs from agencies