Church backs PM in fight against honour killings

Church leaders have welcomed last Monday’s statement by the Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to toughen laws to end the widespread practice of honour killings, writes Ellen Teague.

“The Church condemns killing of any kind,” Bishop Samson Shukardin of Hyderabad declared, and called for “stricter implementation against this tribal practice”. Fr Joseph Louis, executive secretary of Caritas Pakistan, said “in many cases, even if parents ultimately accept love marriages, victims’ brothers do not stop until they kill [their sister] to restore the so-called family honour”.

The Prime Minister met with Pakistani filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, whose documentary A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, highlighting the issue, is nominated for an Academy Award.

More than 500 men and women died in honour killings in 2015, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.