Why?

It is a tragedy, a horror, a crime against humanity. The details of the murders – of the women beheaded, burned to death, stoned to death, stabbed, electrocuted, strangled and buried alive for the "honour" of their families – are as barbaric as they are shameful. Many women's groups in the Middle East and South-west Asia suspect the victims are at least four times the United Nations' latest world figure of around 5,000 deaths a year. Most of the victims are young, many are teenagers, slaughtered under a vile tradition that goes back hundreds of years, but which now spans half the globe.

Consider the young woman found in a drainage ditch near Daharki in Pakistan, "honour" killed by her family as she gave birth to her second child, her nose, ears and lips chopped off before being axed to death, her first infant lying dead among her clothes, her newborn's torso still in her womb, its head already emerging from her body.

Why does this continue?

Just in case you think this is restricted to a foreign country, in NZ, it is feared a woman, Ranjeeta Sharma, 28, was the victim of an honour killing. Her charred body was found on a rural road, near Huntly in the Waikato. Her husband is at the centre of an international manhunt.