Hira Anwar’s tragic story: How a teen’s fight for identity sparked a call to action to end honour killings
In diaspora communities, young people often face the challenge of balancing their cultural roots with Western societal norms. For Hira Anwar, her path to self-discovery turned into tragedy. Born and raised in Yonkers, New York, the 14-year-old was a typical American teenager. On the weekends, she liked spending time with friends at the mall and drew inspiration from her favourite pop stars Billie Eilish and Zayn Malik. She was described by her teachers and classmates at Public School 16 as courageous and confident. However, this all came to a startling halt when Hira was reportedly unenrolled from middle school in what she thought to be a family vacation to Pakistan with relatives in January.
Hira fell victim to an honour killing on the night of Monday 27 January. The young girl was fatally shot outside her father’s family home in Quetta, the Capital city in the province of Balochistan, Pakistan. Authorities believe the murder was premeditated by her father Anwar ul-Haq Rajpoot and maternal uncle.
@looksbyhala i wanted to talk about hira (edit - had to disable the comments because this somehow landed on the Islamophobic side of TikTok 👎)
♬ original sound - hala
What is an honour killing?
An honour killing typically involves the murder of a person, predominantly women and girls, committed by community or close family members, often justified by the beliefs that the person’s actions brought dishonour to the family name.
In an ongoing investigation, Pakistani Police officials told Reuters the “family had an objection to Hira’s dressing, lifestyle and social gathering,” and a discontent with her use of social media.
Honour-based abuse is more prevalent in patriarchal and conservative societies. Over 1000 women in Pakistan are killed each year by this form of violence, according to data from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. From January to November 2024, 346 women in the country reportedly lost their lives to honour killings. While it’s important to highlight that gender-based violence is a global issue, these particular findings are particularly shocking.
The United Nations Global Femicide report revealed that in 2023, 60 per cent of all female homicides were committed by intimate partners or close family members. This means an average of 140 women and girls are killed each day in all parts of the world.
In Western countries like the USA and UK, young people coming of age within diaspora communities can find themselves torn between familial expectations and modern cultural norms. History shows the dangerous consequences of navigating one’s identity. In the UK, the 14th of July is the National Day of Remembrance for victims of honour-based abuse and forced marriage. This date marks the birthday of Bradford-born, Shafilea Ahmed, who at 17 years old was tragically murdered by her parents in 2003 for embracing Western culture.
Many women and girls have faced similar situations to Hira Anwar, taken back to their parents’ home countries only to be met with violent acts such as forced marriage and death.
How can we combat violence against women?
For this reason, SCREENSHOT has interviewed experts to find out what legal and societal measures there are to protect young women and girls in the UK and the added measures needed to combat patriarchal crimes rooted in misogyny.
“Using the term honour is just lazy, it’s not respectful to the victims. Whether Hira made TikTok videos or not is irrelevant. It’s not an honour-killing. It’s a cold-blooded murder of their daughter. Language is very important. Fathers, mothers, and elder brothers will say I’m doing this for the family, Is it the family honour? We need to challenge a culture that creates future perpetrators, said Aneeta Prem, founder of Freedom Charity.
The human rights activist has worked tirelessly to eradicate Dishonour Abuse through a strong focus on releasing children’s educational books, such as But It’s Not Fair, with information on the Forced Marriage Civil Protection Order Act 2007, which can help with the repatriation of a victim that has been taken abroad against their will back to the UK. Prem also wrote Cut Flowers addressing Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). The charity’s campaigning has played a crucial role in the UK Government’s criminalising forced marriages in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. This Act includes taking someone overseas to force them to marry (whether or not the forced marriage takes place).
“The only way we’re going to do this is through education at grassroots levels in schools, colleges, universities and training professionals in the workplace. Not making Dishonour Abuse as something that happens to people in another country. These are your friends that you go to school, university or work with right now,” Aneeta explained.
Despite Rajpoot, Hira’s father, having lived and integrated into the community of Westchester County, New York, for more than two decades, the suspect still held onto traditional and outdated values on how women should behave.
“For some young people who are growing up, who’ve had the best of both cultures, that becomes a real threat for their parents. It’s all about power and control,” said Yasmin Khan MSc, founder of Halo Project Charity, supporting Black and minority groups including the Brethren denomination of the Church of England and gypsy and traveller communities. The National Adviser to the Welsh Government then told me how people in South Asian countries have progressed in their values and societal attitudes: “What the parents need to understand is that people in the countries that they’ve left have actually moved on and evolved, but they seem to have brought together a very narrow set of values that they think is still acceptable today.”
For instance, in Pakistan, there was a national outrage after social media star Qandeel Baloch was killed by her brother Waseem Khan, in July 2016. The same year, Pakistan’s parliament passed a landmark legislation, an anti-honour killing bill, removing the loophole that allowed killers to walk free if pardoned by the victim’s family with perpetrators getting a mandatory 25-year sentence. However, with the entrenched societal acceptance of gender-based violence in the country and with legal loopholes that can be exploited, in 2022, Waseem Khan was granted acquittal by the Lahore High Court, revealing that impunity is still easily gained.
Khan told SCREENSHOT how a country’s laws can help prevent the rate of abusive incidents, “The UK has a great consulate. I’ve spoken to young people on the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, and they told me the law acted as a bit of a deterrent for the parents.” But, the expert also noted that more needs to be done in terms of looking at the different forms of violence against women, as they can often be grouped together which can make it harder for authorities and organisations to identify support for victims and survivors.
“The Forced Marriage Unit’s statistics reveal that helping organisations and victims at risk of forced marriage has gone down. The figures are decreasing year on year, but we charities are saying that’s not a reflection of the actual cases we’re supporting,” she continued.
“The issue is it is widespread but it’s not been recorded in the way it should be. Honour-based abuse should be a separate indicator and so should forced marriage, but sometimes they get grouped under domestic abuse or sexual violence. Look at it from a victim’s perspective. Am I able to find this data online or is it yet to be posted?” Khan concluded.
The Halo project created the first-ever super-complaint looking at how police forces in England and Wales were failing victims of an ethnic minority background as they weren’t considering the risk of honour-based abuse properly.
From speaking to diaspora experts, it’s evident that victims and survivors of minoritised groups benefit greatly from accessing support from specialist services such as Freedom Charity and Halo Project in the UK and Sakshi South Asian Survivors in the USA. The staff understand the intersectional issues individuals face and can cater to their needs. Bringing awareness on honour-based abuse in educational institutions can help young people get the courage to ask for help and recognise whether what they are facing is abuse.
