A mother has taken the life of her
19-year-old daughter for running away to marry her boyfriend. A court in
Pakistan sentenced a mother to death on Monday for burning her daughter
alive as punishment for marrying without the family's consent. Parveen
Bibi confessed before a special court in the city of Lahore to killing
her daughter in June for what she said was "bringing shame to the family".
Police said 18-year-old Zeenat Rafiq married Hassan Khan and eloped to live with his family a week before she was killed.
The
court sentenced Rafiq's brother Anees to life in prison after the
evidence showed her mother and brother had first beaten her, before her
mother threw kerosene on her and set her on fire.
After
Rafiq's murder in a poor district of Lahore, none of her relatives
sought to claim her body, police said, leaving her husband's family to
bury her charred remains after dark in a graveyard near the city.
Violence
against women is rampant in Pakistan, according to the independent
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Citing media reports, it said there
were more than 1,100 "honour killings" in 2015.
Pakistan's
parliament passed legislation against "honour killings" in October,
three months after the murder of outspoken social media star Qandeel
Baloch. Her brother was arrested in relation to her strangling death in
July.
Perceived damage to a family's "honour" can involve eloping, fraternizing with men or other breaches of conservative values.
In
most cases, the victim is a woman and the killer is a relative who
escapes punishment by seeking forgiveness for the crime from family
members.
Under the new law, relatives can forgive convicts in
the case of a death sentence, but they would still have to face a
mandatory life sentence.
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