A New York-born 14-year-old girl was murdered by her Pakastani father and uncle in a so-called “Honor Killing,” in reality a horrible brutality.
Hira Anwar lived in New York with her parents – both Pakistani immigrants who had emigrated two decades ago. Although the New York Times reports she was a normal, happy teenager when outside her home, her parents expected a strict and modest code of conduct for her as a young woman.
On Monday night, her father and uncle felt she had brought shame to her family and shot her dead during what was portrayed as a vacation back to Pakistan.
What did Anwar do to upset her father so badly that inspired her to kill? She was online, posting videos to TikTok like any of person her age. Her father thought the content was not appropriate.
He later confessed to the murder in Quetta, the capital of the southwestern province of Balochistan, Pakistan.
The Times reports this is not an aberration among Pakistanis, but an ongoing problem against women in that culture.
Citing the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, the Times lists the number of these honor killings per year as remaining stable with 588 in Pakistan last year, 490 in 2023, and 590 for 2022.
One woman was murdered by her brother for using a cell phone while another was poisoned by her parents for dating.
Another honor killing took place in Italy when a woman resisted a forced marriage.
Pakistan has introduced harsh punishment including the death penalty in some cases for honor killings but the problem remains.
The Times tries to tiptoe around the real issue in quoting Kavita Mehra, executive director of Sakhi for South Asian Survivors, a nonprofit in New York who said these instances are explained by being, “enmeshed in intergenerational trauma — cycles of pain, silence and patriarchal control, shaped by histories of colonialism, displacement and migration.”
It’s unclear how trauma, pain, “the patriarchy,” or colonialism have anything to do with men murdering the women in their family.
According to a State Department report from 2021, 96 percent of the population are Muslim.
Even where Muslims do not hold an overwhelming majority in a country, we see violence and brutality against women.
Look no further than the United Kingdom where gangs of Pakistani men groom and rape young women while the government downplays the abuse.
Anwar ul-Haq spent two decades in the United States before murdering his daughter. His customs and backwards values that inspired him to murder his own child remained with him.
To put this in the context of the United States, there are unfortunately immigrants who come here with no intention of adopting our values. Although this murder happened in Pakistan, it was committed by a man living in the United States against his daughter, an American.
If we kept what Vice President J.D. Vance called, “the dumbest immigration policy in the world,” courtesy of former President Joe Biden, we might have seen more abhorrent stories like that of Hira Anwar or the numerous young women in the UK.
Fortunately, common sense prevails as President Donald Trump makes real progress in upending those policies, but not before the tragic murders of so many innocent Americans.
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