Armed men shot dead a woman, her husband, their son, and two others in a farming village in Pakistan. According to Agence-France Press, four of the woman’s brothers and four other family members brutally killed the family in a so-called “honor” killing because their sister refused to marry her cousin and chose to marry another man in 2002.
Human rights groups report that hundreds of people, the majority of whom are women, are killed in the name of honor in Pakistan’s rural areas. There have been 410 reported incidences of so-called “honor” killings, with many more going unreported, from January to September 2004, reports India Daily News.
In a move that many human rights and women’s rights advocates see as a positive step forward, Pakistan’s lower house of Parliament passed legislation that proposes harsher sentences for certain honor killing cases. However, before the bill can become law it has to be approved by the upper house of Parliament and signed by President Pervez Musharraf.
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