Father Slays New York Girl, 14, in TikTok ‘Honor Killing’

Asia Pacific|Father Slays New York Girl, 14, in TikTok ‘Honor Killing’

Hira Anwar, 14, lived in two contrasting worlds in New York, where she was born and raised. Outside her home, she was a typical American teenager, laughing with friends, posting videos on TikTok and dreaming of a boundless future.

Inside the home, her reality was very different. Her parents, Pakistani immigrants who had settled in the United States over two decades ago, expected her to adhere to their cultural and religious values that demanded modesty from women. To them, Hira’s bold, expressive online presence was a direct challenge.

That tension, familiar in South Asian immigrant households across the West, ended in deadly violence this week. Hira was fatally shot by her father and an uncle on Monday night, several days after arriving in Pakistan on what she had been told was a family vacation, the police said. The authorities called her death an “honor killing.”

In a chilling confession in Quetta, the capital of the southwestern province of Balochistan, Hira’s father, Anwar ul-Haq, said she had brought shame to the family by posting what he called inappropriate videos online, the police said.

Hira’s death is part of a deeply ingrained pattern of violence against women in Pakistan and within its diaspora, rights advocates said, an ancient problem that has taken on dangerous new dimensions with the rise of social media.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent rights group, recorded 588 so-called honor killings in Pakistan in 2024, up from 490 in 2023 and nearly matching the 590 reported in 2022.