May 18, 2020

Digital Rights Foundation expresses its outrage regarding the cold-blooded murder of two teenage girls at the hands of their family member, killed in the name of misplaced and patriarchal notions of “honour”. The honour killing was prompted by a short mobile video of the young man that surfaced on social media. The video was leaked without the girls’ consent and contained private imagery.

Regrettably, killings in the name of so-called honour are not a new phenomenon in Pakistan and several parts of the world, technology-enabled violence is emerging as a tool for shaming women and controlling their autonomy. Videos and images of women are often weaponised to blackmail, exercise control and inflict violence on women, employing technology as another tool in service of the patriarchy. In Pakistan, the digital gender divide is among the largest in the world, as women are 37 per cent less likely than men to own a mobile phone device of their own. Furthermore, women’s access is often surveilled and controlled by patriarchal figures in their lives. This gap is particularly stark in areas such as Waziristan where mobile internet access has been denied due to a prolonged internet shutdown, resulting in women being deprived of access to resources and crucial information that can potentially save lives.

This is not the first time honour killings resulted from the leaking of women’s private information and images. In a society where women’s consent and their bodily autonomy is regularly violated and dismissed, technology often serves as a handmaiden of these patriarchal structures. Women accessing online spaces or using technology to express themselves or exercise pleasure have heartbreakingly been met with violence and censure. Qandeel Baloch subverted online spaces to express herself and her sexuality, only to be met with online violence and privacy violations which culminated in her murder at the hands of her brother. The 2011 Kohistan case, which saw the murder of three men and five young women due to a video in which they were dancing in their private home, took multiple investigations, intervention by the Supreme Court of Pakistan and nearly eight years to see justice. 

While a First Information Report (FIR) of the incident has been registered at Razmak police station in North Waziristan, we would urge the authorities to closely monitor the investigation and prosecution of the case given the heinous nature of the crime. Honour killings should not only be condemned across the board, but the action taken by the police and courts should reflect this. Too often, societal pressure, familial collusion and uneven application of the law have marred cases in the past. Since the Criminal Law (Amendment) (Offences in the name or pretext of Honour) Act, 2016, the law is clear regarding the limited ability of the family to pardon the perpetrator in cases of honour killings and the state must ensure that section 311 of the Pakistan Penal Code is implemented in its true spirit. In addition to ensuring justice against the honour killing, an investigation should also be launched into the leaking of the private and intimate video. These videos put women’s lives at risk and contribute to a culture where women’s bodies are consumed as objects for male pleasure. Women, through exploitative imagery, are dehumanised, blackmailed and often re-traumatised.

We also urge the state to take immediate and pre-emptive measures to ensure the safety of the other two individuals in the leaked clips. Particularly the security and privacy of the young woman must be ensured and should serve as a precedent for all future investigations dealing with leaked images and videos of women.

Unfortunately, honour killings are not a relic of outdated or fringe ideas, they are grounded in current notions of viewing women as familial and societal property, bearing the impossible burden of carrying the honour of the family, community and nation. In just the last month alone, there were six reported cases of honour killings only in Swat. Furthermore, it is important to state that digital rights such as privacy and protection from online hate speech should be universally enjoyed, however they are particularly important to ensure the safety of women and gender minorities in online spaces--for women and gender minorities, effective mechanisms ensuring the enforcement of these rights can be the difference between life and death.