Pakistan Supreme Court ordered an inquiry into a decision by a council of elders, or jirga, in a village in southern Sindh province to give away five minor girls in marriage as compensation for a double murder case. The council ordered the killers’ family to give in marriage 5 girls aged 13 months to 6 years in marriage to the family of a man and woman slain in 1997. The Supreme Court ordered an inquiry and demanded a report within two weeks.

Pakistan society is still largely living in the medieval times. The so-called Hudood Ordinances virtually treats women as slaves and objects owned by men. Honor killings where the relatives of a girl kill her to save the “honor” of their family if they were to marry or fall in love with an undesirable boy is common. Honor rape is another barbaric custom where a relative of a boy from an undesirable family daring to marry a girl from an influential family is raped by family members of the girl to dishonor that family.

Recently, a report by Hindu American Foundation (HAF), a non-profit organization, used published information to show organized and institutional discrimination against Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan and Bangladesh. In its report Hindus in South Asia and the Diaspora - A Survey of Human Rights 2005, the organization cites cases of abduction from houses of Hindu women by Muslim men to be forcibly married and refused access to legal, parental, or political access.

While Pakistan Constitution guarantees religious freedom, implementing officers ensure that minorities and women have no such freedom. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf came under severe international criticism defending an “honor rape” judgment and calling the victim a “bounty seeker” and a “visa seeker.” Such insensitivity at even the highest levels naturally percolates down to the political, police, and administrative levels.

The Human Rights Watch had accused {Musharraf of being more interested in consolidating power than respecting the rights of women. The United States (US) cut its USD 701 million aid package to Pakistan citing deterioration in human rights, lack of progress on democracy.