Honour Killing in Pakistan: What It Is, What the Law Says and Why It Continues

What the term means

In an “honour” killing, a family or community decides that one of its members has damaged its reputation, and kills that person to restore it.

The supposed offences are rarely crimes. They include:

• marrying a person of one’s own choice;
• refusing a marriage arranged by the family;
• seeking a divorce;
• being seen with, or speaking to, an unrelated man;
• being the victim of rape;
• appearing in a photograph or a video on a phone.

The victim is usually a woman or a girl. The killer is usually her father, brother, husband or uncle. Men are killed too, typically the man she is accused of being involved with.

Many campaigners dislike the word “honour”, because it repeats the killer’s excuse. Pakistan’s own law avoids endorsing it. It speaks of offences committed “in the name or on the pretext of honour”. The word pretext matters, as we shall see.

There is no honour in it. The term describes what the killer claims, not what the act is. Under Pakistani law it is murder, and since 2016 it is a kind of murder that a family cannot forgive away.

How many

Nobody knows the true figure. Many deaths are recorded as suicides, accidents or ordinary murders, or are never reported at all.

Two further figures from that Senate briefing explain much of what follows:

• only about 41 per cent of such cases are officially classed as honour killings; and
• the conviction rate for rape and honour-killing cases together is about 0.5 per cent.

In other words, most cases are recorded as something else, and almost no one is punished.

Where

The killings happen in every province and among every class, in cities as well as villages. The largest numbers are usually reported from Punjab, which has the most people, and from upper Sindh and the districts of Balochistan that border it, where tribal councils remain powerful.

The law, step by step

To understand why the law failed for so long, you need to know how murder is treated in Pakistan.

Step 1: murder became a private matter (1990)

In 1990 Pakistan rewrote its law of murder on Islamic principles, known as qisas and diyat. Under them the victim’s legal heirs have three choices.

For most murders this means the victim’s family can settle the case. The problem in an honour killing is plain. The victim’s family is the killer’s family. A father kills his daughter; her heirs are her mother and brothers; they forgive him; he goes home.

Step 2: the crime is named (2004)

A law passed in 2004 defined offences “in the name or on the pretext of honour” for the first time and set a minimum sentence. But it left the forgiveness rule largely in place. Judges could still punish a pardoned killer. They were not required to.

Step 3: the loophole is closed (2016)

In July 2016 a young social media celebrity, Qandeel Baloch, was strangled at her family’s home in Multan. Her brother was arrested and, according to press reports at the time, said before the cameras that he had done it for the family’s honour. He later pleaded not guilty. The public anger that followed pushed Parliament to act.

On 6 October 2016 a joint sitting of both houses passed a new law. Its central rule:

• Where a murder is committed in the name of honour, the family’s forgiveness can save the killer only from the death penalty.
• He must still serve imprisonment for life.

The law treats such a killing as a crime against society as a whole, not merely against one family.

Why the killings continue

If the law is strong, why have the numbers not fallen? Lawyers and rights groups give six reasons.

1. The motive has to be proved

The 2016 rule applies only if the court finds that the murder was committed in the name of honour. So the defence changes the story. The accused says it was a quarrel over land, a sudden fight, an accident. If the court accepts that it was an ordinary murder, the old rule returns, and the family may forgive.

2. The police choose the section

The case begins with the first information report written at the police station. If the officer registers a plain murder, without the honour provision, the 2016 safeguard may never come into play. Families, and sometimes local notables, press for exactly that. This is why fewer than half of cases are classed as honour killings.

3. Witnesses are relatives

The people who saw what happened are usually members of the same household. They withdraw their statements, or say they saw nothing. Without witnesses, the prosecution collapses.

4. The Qandeel Baloch case itself

The case that produced the law also showed its limits. Her brother was convicted in 2019 and sentenced to life imprisonment. In February 2022 the Lahore High Court acquitted him, after his parents forgave him and questions were raised about how his confession had been recorded. The state said it would appeal. Whatever the legal reasoning, the public message was that even the most famous case had ended without a conviction that stood.

5. Councils of elders

In parts of the country a council of tribal or village elders, called a jirga or panchayat, still decides such matters. Some have ordered killings. The Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that such councils have no power to try or punish anyone and that doing so is illegal. In remote districts the ruling is widely ignored.

6. “Honour” as a cover

Investigators often find another motive beneath the stated one: a dispute over inheritance, a debt, a wish to be rid of a wife, or a feud with the family of the man accused. In upper Sindh, rights workers have long reported cases in which a woman was declared kari so that the man named with her could be forced to pay compensation in money or land. This is why the law’s word “pretext” is so apt.

Cases that changed the debate

A handful of cases, each widely reported, shaped public opinion and the law.

The 2025 Balochistan case

The most recent of these shows both what has changed and what has not.

In July 2025 a video spread on social media showing a woman and a man being led into a stretch of desert near Quetta and shot. Police said the two had been condemned by a tribal council. Within days the provincial government announced arrests, including that of a tribal leader accused of giving the order, which he denied. The chief justice of the Balochistan High Court took up the matter on his own initiative. The case was registered under the anti-terrorism law as well as the Penal Code.

So the state reacted quickly, and at the highest level. That is new. But the killing had happened weeks before the video appeared, and nothing was done until the footage forced the issue. In September 2025 the High Court granted bail to the tribal leader. The outcome of the trial was not found when this article was written.

The right to choose

Most of these killings begin with a marriage, or the wish for one. It is worth stating plainly what the law says about that.

• An adult woman in Pakistan may marry a man of her own choice. The courts settled this in a well-known case that began in Lahore in the 1990s and ended in the Supreme Court. Her father’s or brother’s consent is not required for the marriage to be valid.
• A marriage without the bride’s free consent is not valid.
• A couple who fear violence from their families may ask a High Court for protection, and the courts regularly order the police to provide it.

So a woman who marries by choice has broken no law. The people who threaten her have.

What religion says

Those who commit these killings often claim religious sanction. Pakistan’s leading religious scholars, of several schools, have said publicly that there is none. Islam, they point out, forbids killing without due process, requires an adult woman’s consent to her marriage and prescribes strict rules of evidence precisely so that no one is punished on suspicion or rumour.

The practice is a matter of custom, not faith. It is found among Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Christians across South Asia and the Middle East, and it is older than any of the borders in the region.

What would make a difference

There is broad agreement among lawyers, police officers and rights groups about what works.

Longer-term change is slower and matters more: girls who finish school, women who earn their own income and own their share of property, and a generation of men raised to see a sister’s choice as hers to make.

If you or someone you know is in danger

Services and numbers change. Check that they are current before relying on them.

Words used in this article

Timeline

For the wider picture, read our guide to how Pakistan’s politics works.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Aaj English, “405 women killed in Pakistan last year in the name of ‘honour'” — 2025, reporting the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
• IANS, “Deeply entrenched patriarchal mindset fuels honour killings in Pakistan: report” — 28 July 2026; an Indian news agency citing Pakistani figures.
• Minute Mirror, “Senate raises concerns over low conviction rate in honour killing cases”
• The Conversation, “Pakistan again faces questions over honour killings as brother acquitted of social media star’s murder” — 2022; an academic’s analysis.
• Lok Sujag, “Cycle of silence: Increasing ‘honour’ killings in Pakistan despite legal reforms”
• Dawn, “11 more suspects arrested in Balochistan couple’s killing; case transferred to SCIW police” — July 2025.
• Geo News, “BHC approves bail plea of tribal leader Satakzai in Degari honour killing case” — September 2025.
• The Express Tribune, “Teen girl allegedly killed for ‘honour’ by uncle, cousin in K-P’s Lower Dir” — 2026; an example of a recent report.
• Human Rights Commission of Pakistan — for its annual reports.