675 Pakistan ‘Honour Killing’ Victims

675 Pakistani women and girls were murdered during the first nine months of the year for allegedly defaming their family’s honour, a leading human rights group said Tuesday. They included at least 71 victims under the age of 18. The statistics highlight the scale of violence suffered by many women in conservative Muslim Pakistan, where they are frequently treated as second-class citizens and there is no law against domestic violence. Despite some progress on better protecting women’s rights, activists say the government needs to do far more to prosecute murderers in cases largely dismissed by police as private, family affairs. On December12, Pakistan’s Senate has passed bill promising strict punishment for perpetrators of heinous crimes against women.