RASC News Agency: Authorities in Peshawar, Pakistan, reported on Sunday the tragic and brutal killing of an Afghanistani couple in the Ghafar Abad area. According to police sources, the couple was fatally shot in what investigators suspect to be a so-called “honor killing” a term widely condemned by human rights advocates as a dangerous euphemism for premeditated gender-based violence rooted in patriarchal dominance. The victims, identified as Adnan and his wife, had been married for just over a year. Despite facing strong resistance from both families and enduring intense societal pressure, the couple chose to pursue their union independently a decision that appears to have cost them their lives. Preliminary findings indicate that the assailant fled the scene immediately after the shooting, and local security forces have since launched a manhunt to apprehend the perpetrator.
The case has sparked renewed outrage, as it exemplifies a long-standing and deeply embedded cultural pathology across both Pakistan and Afghanistan where concepts of female autonomy and marital choice are often met with fatal resistance. In conservative and male-dominated societies, particularly in tribal areas and under Taliban-influenced ideologies, women are treated as extensions of male honor. Any deviation from this rigid and oppressive code is viewed as a dishonor to be avenged, often through lethal violence. While Pakistani media outlets confirm that the suspect’s identity remains unknown, security officials are under mounting pressure to deliver justice. However, history suggests that such crimes are rarely prosecuted effectively, as cultural acceptance and legal loopholes often shield the perpetrators of honor-based violence.
In Afghanistan, the situation is even more dire. Under Taliban rule, which reinstated a regressive theocratic regime in 2021, the state not only fails to protect women from violence but actively reinforces the very structures that enable it. The Taliban’s draconian policies and gender-apartheid governance have emboldened traditionalist forces, creating an environment where crimes against women and young couples go unpunished, or worse justified. No reliable nationwide data on honor killings has been collected in Afghanistan since the Taliban dismantled the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. The last publicly available report from 2020 recorded at least 167 such killings a number widely believed to be a fraction of the actual total due to pervasive underreporting, fear of reprisals, and systemic denial of women’s rights.
International human rights organizations have consistently denounced honor killings as a gross violation of basic human dignity and have warned that the Taliban’s ideological control over Afghanistani society will further institutionalize violence against women. By promoting an extremist interpretation of religion that subjugates women and denies them legal person hood, the Taliban has transformed Afghanistan into one of the most dangerous places in the world for women and girls. The murder of Adnan and his wife though committed across the border in Pakistan serves as a harrowing reminder of how misogynistic values transcend geography when reinforced by state neglect and religious authoritarianism. In Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, such ideologies are not merely tolerated they are institutionalized.
Unless international pressure mounts and concrete measures are taken to dismantle the legal and ideological infrastructure that supports these killings, more lives will be lost to this invisible epidemic. The global community must recognize that behind every “honor” killing lies not only a personal tragedy but also a systemic failure and in Afghanistan’s case, a regime that actively nurtures that failure.
