Arundhati Singh, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
Honour killings is one of the most gruesome crimes which has been prevailing in our country. Sadly, no stringent reforms have been enforced to curb the wave of this problem. It is an egregious violation of legal statutes and human rights. These unconscionable acts involve the premeditated murder of an individual, predominantly women, by kin who perceive the victim has contravened moral codes and thus deleteriously besmirched the family reputation. Honour killings refer to murders committed by family members, typically against women, who are perceived to have brought dishonour upon the family. Common reasons given for honour killings include refusing an arranged marriage, seeking a divorce, having premarital or extramarital relations, etc. The Period between the year 2014-2015 marked a spike in the number of honour killing cases in India. The junior home minister said that there has been nearly an increase of more than 250 cases in the past years, amounting to nearly an upshoot of 70%. More than 40% of such cases go unreported for fear of reprisals and to protect family’s pride. In the August of 2012 the law commission proposed a framework for the legislation to crackdown the cases of honour killings, however progress has not been made to a much extent. Estimating precise statistics on such furtive and deftly buried crimes has proven an intractable endeavour, yet aggregated data indicates hundreds of women and men are murdered annually by relatives seeking to rectify imagined slights to their social prestige. The victims are presupposed to have committed putative transgressions antithetical to communal mores, including filial disobedience, unsanctioned romantic affiliations, or expressing personal agency over patriarchally regulated domains such as marriage and sexuality.
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