In Pakistan, the concept of "honor" has become a socially sanctioned mechanism of control, disproportionately targeting women’s autonomy, mobility, and bodily rights. Despite constitutional guarantees of equality and legal reforms against gender-based violence, honor continues to be wielded as a moral justification for abuse, surveillance, and violence. From honor killings to restrictive dress codes, the policing of women’s bodies is not merely a cultural issue, it is a political and institutional crisis. This editorial examines the deeply embedded honor culture in Pakistan and how it perpetuates gender inequalities under the guise of tradition, morality, and religiosity.
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Honor-based violence in Pakistan is not confined to remote or rural regions. It pervades urban middle-class households, elite circles, and policy institutions, revealing a systemic denial of women’s agency. The Pakistan Penal Code, even after the 2016 amendment criminalizing honor killings, still allows for loopholes through qisas and diyat (blood money) provisions, enabling perpetrators, often family members, to walk free.
According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP, 2023), nearly 1,000 women are killed each year in the name of honor. These figures likely underrepresent the actual number, as many cases are either unreported or misclassified as accidents or suicides. More insidiously, honor is invoked not just in life-threatening situations but in everyday acts of surveillance, from regulating women’s dress and friendships to controlling their access to education and work. This culture, steeped in patriarchal interpretations of religious and social norms, robs women of the right to selfhood, reducing them to custodians of male-defined family repute.
The notion of honor (izzat) in Pakistan is deeply gendered, rooted in tribal, feudal, and religious patriarchy. In this framework, a family’s or community’s reputation is linked not to its values or contributions, but to the behavior of its women. This transference of moral responsibility onto women’s bodies serves as an effective mechanism of social control, allowing male guardians to legitimize coercion in the name of protection.
Women’s choices, be it in clothing, mobility, marriage, or expression, are constantly scrutinized under this lens. Deviance from rigid codes of conduct is punished not only physically but through social ostracization, psychological abuse, and economic disempowerment. The burden of upholding family honor often requires women to internalize guilt, suppress ambition, and tolerate abuse, reinforcing multi-generational cycles of subjugation.
The ideological construction of honor thereby functions as a silent constitution, more powerful than any codified law, defining acceptable femininity and punishing resistance. This internalization ensures that surveillance is communal, not just individual, with women often complicit in enforcing the very norms that oppress them. Pakistan’s legal and justice system has repeatedly failed to dismantle the structural impunity surrounding honor-based crimes. Despite the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2016, which sought to ensure mandatory punishment for honor killings, conviction rates remain abysmally low due to weak enforcement, delayed trials, and social pressure on victims’ families.
Police officers, often drawn from the same patriarchal cultural milieu, treat honor crimes as private family matters, dissuading complaints or manipulating evidence. Judicial attitudes also reflect a bias toward reconciliation rather than justice, especially in cases involving elopement or inter-caste marriages. Furthermore, victim-blaming narratives are perpetuated in courtrooms, classrooms, and newsrooms, reinforcing the idea that women who transgress social norms deserve retribution.
This institutional complicity is compounded by the absence of comprehensive witness protection, inadequate funding for women’s shelters, and poor implementation of gender sensitization programs. Laws without enforcement, and reform without cultural shifts, serve only to cosmetically address what is a deeply embedded societal pathology.
Media in Pakistan plays a paradoxical role in shaping public discourse on women and honor. While a handful of progressive voices raise awareness about misogyny and violence, mainstream television, cinema, and news often reinforce regressive tropes. Women are portrayed as either virtuous victims or moral deviants, with little room for complexity or autonomy.
Religious rhetoric, particularly from non-state clergy and televangelists, further fuels the narrative that a woman’s chastity is a community's moral axis. Sermons and viral clips emphasize hijab, piety, and obedience as the highest feminine virtues, implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) blaming women for societal decay. In such a climate, calls for women’s rights are misconstrued as foreign agendas, alienating reform efforts from the masses.
Cultural production, through TV dramas, music, and literature, rarely challenges these constructs. Instead, it often romanticizes sacrifice, submission, and silence, normalizing the very conditions that enable honor-based oppression. The need for counter-narratives rooted in local idioms of justice, dignity, and mutual respect is critical to reversing this cultural tide.
The policing of women’s bodies has profound implications for mental health, educational access, reproductive rights, and socio-economic participation. Restrictions on mobility mean millions of girls are forced to drop out of school or denied university education, especially in conservative areas. Women who pursue careers face harassment, moral scrutiny, and familial backlash, discouraging financial independence. Honor-based control also extends to decisions about marriage, childbirth, and bodily autonomy. Women often undergo forced marriages or are denied the right to divorce or contraceptive use. According to Marie Stopes Pakistan, more than 50% of women report a lack of autonomy in reproductive choices, contributing to high maternal mortality and unsafe abortions.
Mentally, women endure chronic anxiety, depression, and trauma, living under constant threat of being punished for perceived dishonor. The fear of public shame becomes a barrier to seeking help, reporting abuse, or asserting basic rights, perpetuating isolation and psychological harm. The tyranny of honor, therefore, is not only a cultural crisis but a public health emergency.
Despite the structural violence of honor culture, women in Pakistan continue to resist, through activism, legal advocacy, and everyday defiance. Organizations such as the Aurat Foundation, AGHS Legal Aid, and Girls at Dhabas have led movements to reclaim public space, challenge patriarchal laws, and amplify survivors’ voices.
Landmark judgments by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, including the recognition of women's right to free choice in marriage, offer legal precedents for progressive change. However, these victories remain fragile without social buy-in, grassroots mobilization, and political will. School curricula must be revised to promote gender equality and consent education, while media regulators must hold content creators accountable for perpetuating misogynistic narratives.
More importantly, religious scholars, community elders, and youth influencers must be engaged in reshaping cultural discourse on honor. Change must be indigenous and inclusive, not dictated from above but demanded from within. Without dismantling the cultural glorification of honor, no legal reform can achieve its intended impact.
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The honor system in Pakistan operates as a multi-institutional apparatus of control, sustained by law, custom, religion, and fear. It distorts notions of morality, hijacks justice, and legitimizes violence. Efforts to challenge it must go beyond penal codes to address the cultural psychology of control and shame. True liberation lies not in negotiating with patriarchy, but in redefining the terms of dignity, respect, and community. Unless women’s bodies are freed from the burden of male honor, democracy, justice, and progress will remain incomplete.
The policing of women’s bodies in the name of honor is a national crisis masquerading as cultural tradition. It erodes constitutional rights, undermines legal justice, and blocks social progress. For Pakistan to become a society rooted in equality and human dignity, honor must be redefined, not as a weapon of control but as a value of mutual respect and freedom. This transformation requires coordinated efforts across legal, cultural, and educational spheres. Only then can the tyranny of honor be replaced with a democracy of dignity, agency, and autonomy for all citizens, irrespective of gender.
