But, more than a year on, lawyers and activists say honor killings are still occurring at an alarming pace. “There has been no change,” Benazir Jatoi, a lawyer who works for the independent Aurat Foundation, a women’s rights watchdog, told Agence France-Presse. The new legislation mandates life imprisonment for honor killings, but whether a murder can be defined as a crime of honor is left to the judge’s discretion. Generally Pakistanis will accept a man who has committed rape, a senior police official who has overseen honor killing investigations told Agence France-Presse. “People even sympathize (with) and praise the men who murder their women for so-called honor,” he said.

Source: Manila Times October 31, 2017 11:40 UTC