The husband of the eldest daughter, Muqadas, had accused her of adultery. However, rights groups that have intervened in the case said Muqadas had fled an abusive relationship.

She was reportedly killed because of the adultery allegations, and the younger children were killed because of fears they would follow in her footsteps.

Ahmed was arrested the day after the deaths and charged with murder. He faces the death penalty if convicted. Police expected to complete their investigation in the next two weeks.

"I thought the younger girls would do what their eldest sister had done, so they should be eliminated," Ahmed told the Associated Press as he was led away in handcuffs. "We are poor people and we have nothing else to protect but our honour."

... "Women are treated as property and those committing crimes against them do not get punished," said Kamla Hyat, the director of the commission. "The steps taken by our government have made no real difference."

... Activists said police were often reluctant to prosecute crimes considered to have stemmed from a family dispute. More than half of the cases that make it to court end with cash settlements paid by relatives to victims' families.

Social activists and opposition politicians say the government still needs to offset the Islamic law of qisas and diyat (retribution and blood money), which allows families of the deceased to either forgive the murderer or to ask for blood money in return. Since most honor killings are committed by brothers, fathers, or other kin, the perpetrators go unpunished after they are pardoned by other members of the family. The problem has existed for

And according to a 1999 Amnesty International document, the problem is huge (And it actually increased over the following two years):

Women in Pakistan live in fear. They face death by shooting, burning or killing with axes if they are deemed to have brought shame on the family. They are killed for supposed 'illicit' relationships, for marrying men of their choice, for divorcing abusive husbands, or are even murdered by their kin if they are raped as they are thereby deemed to have brought shame on their family. The truth of the suspicion does not matter -- merely the allegation is enough to bring dishonour on the family and therefore justifies the slaying.

The lives of millions of women in Pakistan are circumscribed by traditions which enforce extreme seclusion and submission to men. Male relatives virtually own them and punish contraventions of their proprietary control with violence. For the most part, women bear traditional male control over every aspect of their bodies, speech and behaviour with stoicism, as part of their fate, but exposure to media, the work of women's groups and a greater degree of mobility have seen the beginnings of women's rights awareness seep into the secluded world of women. But if women begin to assert their rights, however tentatively, the response is harsh and immediate: the curve of honour killings has risen parallel to the rise in awareness of rights.

It looks like things haven't changed much and only continued exposure of the attrocities, juxtaposed with the vociferously expressed outcries of international rights groups, has a chance of changing the situation in predominantly Muslim countries, and especially in Pakistan.

Related reading: If you're interested in some entertaining spin, be sure and read the Muslim Women's League spinmeisters trying to soft peddle the issue of honor killings in "Position Paper on "Honor Killings." There's simply no explaining away a backward culture practicing a violent belief system hidden under the name of peace and God!

Hat tip - Debbie