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The killing of a pregnant woman named Farzana Iqbal by members of her family in broad daylight in Lahore, Pakistan, has prompted protests in that nation by human rights activists. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has announced an inquiry into the murder that was apparently prompted by the 25 year old woman in question marrying a man her family did not approve of. The man himself openly admitted to killing his first wife in order to marry Farzana Iqbal.

In neighboring India two teenage girls were found raped and lynched in a village in Uttar Pradesh, shocking a nation already reeling from several high-profile rapes and murders of women.

While politicians in both countries pay lip service to protect women’s rights, few legislative or educational efforts are planned. And, Western nations like the US, which have used women’s liberation in countries like Afghanistan as a pre-text for demonization of groups and even to launch war, have remained fairly silent when it is their allies in question.

GUEST: Madiha Tahir, independent journalist based in Pakistan, whose work has appeared in Foreign Affairs, the National Columbia Journalism Review, Wall Street Journal and more. She is also a film maker whose documentary Wounds of Waziristan focused on the impact of US drone strikes on ordinary Pakistanis, and the co-editor of a new volume of essays called Dispatches from Pakistan.

Click here for more information about the book Dispatches from Pakistan.