IslamabadRubina Chandio was shot dead in Sindh in an alleged honour killing.
Senator Sherry Rehman called Pakistan’s 5% conviction rate for violence against women “a systemic failure”; legislation exists, she said, but enforcement does not.
Rehman referred Chandio’s case to the Senate Human Rights Committee for immediate scrutiny.
Sources: Dawn
THE LEGAL ARCHITECTURE
Pakistan passed the Anti-Honour Killings Law in 2016, removing the loophole that let families forgive the killer when the killer was also a relative. On paper, honour killings became non-compoundable — the state prosecutes regardless of family wishes. In practice, courts still treat most cases as ordinary murder, where forgiveness (qisas and diyat) remains available.
WHY 5% IS THE CEILING, NOT THE FLOOR
Most cases collapse before verdict. Police register the killing as a private family matter; the only witnesses are relatives who become the legal heirs of the victim and thus hold the right to pardon; forensic evidence is rarely collected. By the time a case reaches court, there is often no complainant left to pursue it.
THE SINDH CONTEXT
Sindh has the country's highest reported rate of karo-kari — the regional term for honour killings, literally 'black male, black female' — driven by tribal jirga councils that adjudicate disputes outside the state legal system. The Pakistan People's Party governs Sindh and has been in power there for most of the post-2008 period; Sherry Rehman is one of its senior senators.
THE JIRGA SHADOW SYSTEM
Parallel justice runs through informal councils — jirgas in Pashtun areas, panchayats in Punjab, faislo in Sindh. The Supreme Court ruled jirgas unconstitutional in 2019, but they continue to issue rulings on women's marriages, killings, and compensation. Their authority comes from being faster, cheaper, and culturally legitimate where state courts are none of those things.
THE QANDEEL PRECEDENT
Social-media star Qandeel Baloch was strangled by her brother in 2016. The case catalyzed the anti-honour-killings law that year — and her brother was convicted in 2019. But in 2022 a Lahore court acquitted him after their parents, as legal heirs, formally pardoned him. The Supreme Court reinstated the conviction in 2023. The seven-year arc from killing to final verdict shows what working through the system looks like, even in a high-profile case.