Last month, 20-year-old Sania Zehra Bukhari was found dead in her home in Multan, hanging from a ceiling fan. Forensic evidence showed that Sania was raped, tortured, and strangled. Her husband, Ali Raza Bukhari, had attempted to stage the crime as a suicide by hanging her body from a ceiling fan — but Sania’s father was convinced she was murdered. Eventually, police arrested Ali Raza after two murder cases were opened against him, although he denies any wrongdoing.

Sania’s alleged murder is not an isolated incident but part of a larger pattern of domestic and gender-based violence in Pakistan. A 2023 policy brief by the National Commission on Human Rights of Pakistan and UN Women showed that at least 90% of Pakistani women experience domestic abuse. Despite laws intended to protect women, enforcement remains weak, and cultural norms continue to prioritize family “honor” over individual lives​ and safety. 

“There’s a very common saying here that ‘a divorced daughter is better than a dead daughter,’ but I find that dehumanizing,” Manahil, 24, a women’s rights activist from Lahore, told More to Her Story. “Women like Sania Zehra, who were married off as kids, didn’t choose these marriages in the first place. Parents who want nothing more than to wed off their daughters are just as much of a problem as the men who kill them. They never deemed them worthy of anything else and cared more about their honor than their life. This is why she lost her life. Even when these women die, their parents mostly care about what people will say about their honor.”

Manahil, like many women in Pakistan, has firsthand experience with “honor” killings. As a child, her cousin was murdered in an “honor” killing. 

“She was found drowned in a river, but her body had bruises. We all know that her husband killed her. He said it was because she was cheating, but that’s not true. Nobody ever did anything about it.” 

“Honor” killings, a form of domestic violence that places male “honor” above women’s lives, affect thousands of women and girls each year. These crimes are usually committed by men against female family members, such as husbands against wives, brothers against sisters, or fathers against daughters.

Honor killings occur mainly in South Asia and the Middle East, with countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Iran, Turkey, and Jordan reporting some of the highest rates. About one-fifth of the world’s honor killings are committed in Pakistan, or 1,000 of the average 5,000 per year. Last year, the country faced a surge in honor-based violence, sparking a national outcry. In one case, a man was charged with murdering his 18-year-old daughter on the orders of a local tribal council because she appeared in a photo with unrelated men on social media. 

In March of this year, police arrested two brothers who had filmed the murder of their sister as their father watched. After one of the brothers strangled his sister to death, the father calmly offered his son a drink of water. The police investigation revealed that the brother’s motive for killing his sister was that he had caught her on a video call with an unknown man. 

Up until 2016, under the Pakistan Penal Code, there was a legal loophole that allowed murderers to avoid full punishment if the victim's family forgave them or paid them blood money, known as Qisas and Diyat. These Islamic principles involve seeking revenge or accepting compensation for a crime. This loophole was especially problematic in “honor” killings, where the crime is often committed by a relative who can easily forgive the murderer. In 2016, Pakistan amended its criminal law to classify “murder committed in the name of honor” as a specific crime with tougher penalties than homicide, following the murder of social media star Qandeel Baloch by her brother. Yet despite these legal reforms, the cultural acceptance of honor-based violence often leads to impunity.

Forced and child marriage are forms of domestic violence that often go hand in hand with “honor,” with some girls being married off early as punishment for breaching male “honor.” According to UN Women, Pakistan has the sixth-highest number of girls married before age 18 globally.

16-year-old Amna in Karachi recalls what happened to her best friend when she was just 14. “She was found to have guy friends. Her father couldn’t control his rage, so he forcefully arranged a marriage with another man who was around her father’s age. Her husband doesn’t allow her to have a phone. I haven’t heard from her in a year. At age 15, she became pregnant, and three months later, her socials were blacked out. This is the average life of a girl in Pakistan,”

Yasmeen Hassan, who wrote The Haven Becomes Hell: A Study of Domestic Violence in Pakistan, the first thorough study of domestic violence in Pakistan, believes that true accountability is multi-faceted and first requires a shift in social attitudes.

“In 1994, I authored Pakistan’s first comprehensive study on domestic violence, which showed that violence against women was the norm and not an aberration in many parts of Pakistan, underpinned by the strongly held and culturally enforced dual notions of women as property and women as “honor” of their families,” she told More to Her Story. “Since then, civil society, activists, and the government have worked to enact and enforce laws, establish shelters and services, and change attitudes. Unfortunately, these horrors persist. Accountability includes not just legal consequences but also social condemnation.”

Neha Touseef, 24, is the founder of Haqq, a platform offering free legal aid to victims of sexual and gender-based violence in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. She says it’s the first platform of its kind in Pakistan.

“There are so many barriers to why girls don’t speak up or come forward,” she told More to Her Story. “If women can message someone anonymously to ask what the legal route is, knowing that there is someone who will deal with it sensitively, that gives a lot of confidence for people to come forward. We also must put pressure on the state to create a more enabling environment for women to come forward,” 

Neha believes two main things will help shift the culture: having more women in positions of power so that other women feel listened to and respected, and fostering open discourse around these issues. 

“If more women were involved in the process, things would be different. Usually, when you go to a police station, you’re met by misogynistic men who don’t care about what happened to you. So, even if you change the laws, you still need to educate people. Our challenges are different from those in the West, and through dialogue, we aim to develop our own understanding of what these issues mean to us and how we should address them.”

But for young women like Manahil, the problem is systemic and reflects a deeper lack of value for women’s lives.

“I think the real problem lies in marrying off daughters without prioritizing their lives, telling them to tolerate domestic violence, and valuing “honor” more than a woman’s life.”