Hira Anwar, 14, lived in two contrasting worlds in New York, the place she was born and raised. Outdoors her dwelling, she was a typical American teenager, laughing with mates, posting movies on TikTok and dreaming of a boundless future.
Inside the house, her actuality was very completely different. Her mother and father, Pakistani immigrants who had settled in america over twenty years in the past, anticipated her to stick to their cultural and non secular values that demanded modesty from girls. To them, Hira’s daring, expressive on-line presence was a direct problem.
That pressure, acquainted in South Asian immigrant households throughout the West, led to lethal violence this week. Hira was fatally shot by her father and an uncle on Monday evening, a number of days after arriving in Pakistan on what she had been advised was a household trip, the police mentioned. The authorities known as her demise an “honor killing.”
In a chilling confession in Quetta, the capital of the southwestern province of Balochistan, Hira’s father, Anwar ul-Haq, mentioned she had introduced disgrace to the household by posting what he known as inappropriate movies on-line, the police mentioned.
Hira’s demise is a part of a deeply ingrained sample of violence in opposition to girls in Pakistan and inside its diaspora, rights advocates mentioned, an historical drawback that has taken on harmful new dimensions with the rise of social media.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an unbiased rights group, recorded 588 so-called honor killings in Pakistan in 2024, up from 490 in 2023 and practically matching the 590 reported in 2022.
Girls usually develop into targets by refusing compelled marriages, looking for divorce or separation, being in relationships deemed inappropriate by households, or participating in different actions seen as violating conservative values. In a single case final yr, a woman was killed by her brother for utilizing a cellphone. In one other, a younger lady was fatally poisoned by her mother and father for courting.
In a number of instances, households of Pakistani origin in Western international locations have lured their daughters again to Pakistan underneath false pretenses. There, they’ve restricted their freedom, compelled them into marriages with cousins — usually to safe visas for the boys — or, in some instances, killed them.
In 2022, two Pakistani sisters holding Spanish residency permits have been tortured and killed a day after arriving in Punjab Province, the police in Pakistan mentioned. Their husbands, an uncle and a brother carried out the killing after the sisters sought divorces from compelled marriages, based on investigators.
Different killings have taken place within the West, and perpetrators in some instances have fled to Pakistan to keep away from arrest.
In Might, the authorities in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, working with Italian officers, arrested a girl who had been convicted, alongside together with her husband, of murdering their teenage daughter. The killing, which befell in northern Italy, was over the daughter’s refusal of a compelled marriage in Pakistan, the authorities mentioned.
Specialists finding out the South Asian diaspora in Western international locations say that intergenerational tensions are widespread, as youthful overseas-born generations more and more problem conventional values.
Kavita Mehra, govt director of Sakhi for South Asian Survivors, a New York-based nonprofit group, mentioned that in america, violence in opposition to girls occurred at larger charges inside South Asian communities. Practically half of South Asian girls in america report experiencing violence at the very least as soon as, based on surveys.
“This isn’t as a result of our group is inherently extra violent,” Ms. Mehra mentioned, “however moderately as a result of we’re enmeshed in intergenerational trauma — cycles of ache, silence and patriarchal management, formed by histories of colonialism, displacement and migration.”
Within the case of the killing this week of 14-year-old Hira, her father initially advised the police that unidentified gunmen had opened hearth on him and his daughter whereas they have been touring to her uncle’s home, based on Babar Baloch, a police officer in Quetta.
However after gathering proof and recording witness statements, the police grew to become suspicious and detained the daddy, who labored as an Uber driver in New York and has two different daughters. The daddy, Mr. ul-Haq, and his brother-in-law have been arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of homicide.
In his confession, the police mentioned, Mr. ul-Haq expressed objections to his daughter’s clothes, way of life and social relationships.
Pakistan has launched legal guidelines over time, some carrying the death penalty, to curb so-called honor killings.
In 2016, after public outrage over the murder of the social media star Qandeel Baloch by her brother, Parliament passed a law closing a legal loophole that permit households forgive perpetrators.
Nonetheless, gender-based violence persists due to societal acceptance and systemic bias in legislation enforcement and the judiciary in Pakistan, specialists mentioned.
“Honor crimes and femicide must be handled as crimes in opposition to the state,” mentioned Shazia Nizamani, a Karachi-based authorized professional. “Even when a household chooses to not pursue authorized motion, the state has a accountability to make sure justice is delivered.”
