Honour killing or shame killing is killing a person either out of the family or any member of the family basically to save or restore the honour or dignity of the family. Since the civilization of society, people have defined some rules for everyone to follow. Like whom to love, whom to befriend, what job one should do, what a female and a male should do, and many more. According to some people, categories are divided according to which a person should love. A person should only love the person belonging to the same community. Anyone who loves someone out of their community should be dead because this brings shame to their family and community.
Honour killing was created from tribal customs. Honour killing is associated with religion, caste, sexuality, and other reasons as well. Generally, according to various reports usually, a female or a girl child of the family gets killed by a male member in the name of saving the honour of the family and those killed will often be more liberal than the murderer rather than genuinely “dishonourable”. Shame killing is not only combined with the tribal or rural area only, but they are also in urban areas.
In layman language, honour killing is the killing of a person of a family who does something which is against the societal norms and brings shame to the name of the family and the community. This is a very serious problem going on which needs very strict action to be taken against such horrible things to save the lives of innocent people.
Provisions Applicable To The Case Of Honor Killing:
- The Indian Penal Code,1860, Section 300, simply mentions murder, i.e., killing of any person to kill him or causing him any injury which would result in the death of the person.
- The Indian Majority Act, 1857, section 3 mentions that every individual attains person majority at the age of 18 years, they are allowed to marry whoever they want after the age of 18 in the case of girls and 21 in the case of boys.
- The Special Marriage Act, 1954, Act was specially enacted for marriages that are not normal, i.e., inter-religion marriages, and marriages with foreigners, which makes such marriages legal.
- Protection of women from domestic violence Act, 2005, this act was enacted to prevent any kind of violence against women, by their family members, and provide a safe environment for women.
These are the provisions violated when any case of honour killing occurs. But there is no special enacted and coded law on honour killing, people have been committing it to set an example that, if they do anything which is against their rules, they will be punished and killed. But the judiciary has certainly given some judgment related to honour killing.
