r/whenwomenrefuse

When Jane Doe 4, as she is identified in legal filings, arrived at her parents’ house in Wyoming to set up a family party earlier this year, the familiar street in her small hometown was filled with state and local law enforcement.

A man who flashed a badge told Jane he had a warrant to search her stepfather’s electronic devices for child sexual abuse material, she said. A technician looking for a hard drive with family photos said it had something to do with artificial intelligence, she said.

Jane later learned that her stepfather had created thousands of sexually explicit images of her as a child and traded them online, she said. He manipulated a photo taken when she was about 11, showing her lying on a couch in an oversize T-shirt, the filings claim, transforming it into graphic fake images. One was captioned “stepdad rapes her,” the documents said.

Jane’s stepfather made the more than 7,000 fake explicit images of her using the AI chatbot Grok, released by Elon Musk’s company xAI, according to the documents she filed last month in a federal lawsuit against the company.

Two days after the raid, her stepfather was found dead by suicide inside his car, Jane said. It was parked in her hometown, where she and her partner had recently bought a house.

“My life was completely normal,” Jane said, speaking on the condition that she be identified by the name used in court filings. “Not even 48 hours after that it was a literal nightmare.”

Jane’s experience, publicly described by her for the first time, shows some of the potential consequences from a growing form of sexual abuse enabled by AI apps that make it easy to create fake but highly realistic child sexual abuse material of a person from a single photo.

She now feels more anxious about keeping her own child safe and warned that AI images can cause real harm. “Limitless access to these tools is spreading so quickly,” Jane said. “It is taking everyday life and turning it into child sexual abuse.”

In July, Jane joined a federal lawsuit that was filed against xAI in March by three Tennessee teenagers, two still minors, identified as Jane Does 1, 2 and 3. They alleged that Grok had been used to sexualize photos of them taken when they were younger.

The expanded suit, filed last month in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleged that xAI had produced, possessed and distributed AI-enabled child sexual abuse material. It seeks class-action status on behalf of anyone who had photos of themselves as minors altered by xAI into sexually explicit content in which they are still recognizable.

The lawsuits came after Musk’s decision last year to make xAI an outlier among major AI companies and promote the use of Grok to create sexual content. He has boosted the chatbot’s ability to generate and manipulate images and video by posting depictions of sexualized young women to his millions of followers on X.

XAI, now part of Musk’s conglomerate SpaceX, did not respond to a request for comment, and the company has not responded to the federal lawsuit in court. Musk has said Grok is supposed to allow “upper body nudity of imaginary adult humans,” similar to R-rated movies.

The plaintiffs are seeking damages under “Masha’s Law,” a federal statute that allows victims of child pornography to sue. The lawsuit also makes product liability claims against xAI for negligence and defective design, similar to wrongful-death suits filed against AI companies by the families of young users who died by suicide.

Lawmakers in the United States and Europe moved to investigate xAI earlier this year, after it allowed the chatbot to publicly post sexualized images on Musk’s social network X in response to requests from users to alter photos to remove subjects’ clothing. Over an 11-day period, the Grok account on X posted about 3 million sexualized images, 23,000 of them depicting children, according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit organization that pressures tech firms to clean up their platforms.

Musk said in a post on X at the time that he was “not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok” and that the chatbot would “refuse to produce anything illegal.”

Within weeks, Jane Doe 4’s stepfather first uploaded the photo of her as a child to Grok, which sent back fake images showing her nude, the lawsuit says.

A couple of weeks after Jane Doe 4 joined the federal lawsuit, xAI sued Minnesota over a new law that bans distribution of nonconsensual nude images of real people made with AI, claiming it would restrict constitutionally protected content.

“XAI’s strategy seems to be: We want to make sure that we allow people to generate anything that is legal,” said David Thiel, an information security researcher and former chief technology officer for the Stanford Internet Observatory. That requires xAI’s technology to reliably draw the line between content that is abusive or merely provocative, he said.

For 20 years, major internet companies have used an automated system managed by the nonprofit National Center for Missing & Exploited Children for reporting and removing child sexual abuse material.

Firms report suspected abuse material to NCMEC’s CyberTipline and use digital fingerprints or “hashes” of confirmed abuse images to automatically detect and remove them.

That system is now being challenged by AI image tools, NCMEC said in a letter this year to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

AI apps, including specialized tools dubbed “nudifiers,” allow anyone to rapidly produce large numbers of new, highly realistic child abuse imagery that cannot be matched against NCMEC’s database.

Generative AI models’ ability to remix and combine different visual concepts and styles makes them potent tools for abuse, said Thiel, the online safety expert. In the same way an AI model can generate a birthday party invitation in the style of a Marvel comic, it can also remove the clothing from an image of a child.

AI models, trained on troves of data scraped from the web, have ingested “plenty of imagery of explicit content, plenty of imagery of children,” said Thiel, who wrote a 2023 report that found child sexual abuse material in a widely used dataset for developing AI image tools.

The lawsuit against xAI also names Stability AI, which makes an open-source, customizable AI image generator called Stable Diffusion. Researchers from Germany’s CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security recently estimated the software is behind more than 40 percent of AI-generated nonconsensual intimate imagery of real people.

Stability AI did not respond to a request for comment. The company has said it tests AI models for child safety and adds protections before they are released. It has not responded to the lawsuit in court.

In its March letter to Grassley, NCMEC criticized xAI and seven other online service providers for poor reporting practices that it claimed stymied law enforcement. The nonprofit organization said that over a three-month period from mid-September last year fewer than 10 percent of tips from xAI could be “sent actionably to law enforcement” because they lacked key information. The company later improved its reporting, the letter said.

Jane Doe 4’s lawsuit against xAI alleges that the company’s tip to NCMEC did not include crucial information from its records, such as the IP addresses associated with her stepfather’s account. It claims xAI failed to respond to multiple requests from an investigator for more information.

Jane’s stepfather was not charged with child pornography offenses and was released by authorities on the day the warrant was executed because xAI’s tip to NCMEC did not provide any of the explicit fake images, Jane Doe 4 said, citing her conversations with an investigator on the case. The investigator told her that xAI’s initial report went to the internet crimes task force in the wrong state, causing further delays, Jane said.

Even when a company fully reports incidents of an AI tool being used to create child sexual abuse imagery, the legal consequences may not be clear-cut.

The enforceable legal boundaries around AI-generated child sexual abuse material are uncertain, said Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University School of Law. Some recent statutes intended to curtail abusive AI images could be challenged on First Amendment grounds, he said.

Since the raid on her parents’ home, Jane’s life has become unrecognizable, she said. She started therapy for trauma and has had to return to work as a nurse to support her widowed mother, putting a financial strain on her own family.

“I’m living through this every day. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t extensively suicidal,” Jane said, the only time her voice cracked in hours of interviews.

MELBOURNE, Fla. — A Florida woman has settled a negligence lawsuit against the Melbourne Police Department after discovering officers destroyed evidence collected the night she was sexually assaulted as a child in 1990.

Liz Bradshaw was 11 years old when she was sexually assaulted by a man named Brian, the brother of her mother's boyfriend. A Melbourne Police Department report from 1990 documents the sexual battery.

"It was after my dad died. I don't ever remember being that happy kid again," Bradshaw told I-Team Reporter Kylie McGivern when they first met to discuss her case, three years ago.

According to the report, officers collected physical evidence that night, including pink sheets, a blue washcloth, a peach blanket, a white nightshirt, and green underwear. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement processed her rape kit within 11 months, finding DNA on Bradshaw's underwear and nightgown.

No arrest was ever made.

Because Brian was never charged, his full name is not being used.

"The police came out, went to the hospital, and I did everything you're supposed to do," Bradshaw said.

Bradshaw said a family member told her Brian had died by suicide, and for more than 30 years, she believed he was dead.

Then, in October 2022, she saw him.

"Normally, we would stop on the way home. At the Wawa. And I was waiting to order and I — I saw him. It was… like I understood fight or flight in that moment. And I flew. I snatched my grandson up and I sat in my truck and I cried," Bradshaw said.

She went to police and requested the records from her case. She told the I-Team what she found stunned her.

"Right here on the paperwork… that the suspect was not located or contacted. And that's where it ends," Bradshaw said.

The rape kit and the DNA evidence collected the night of the attack had been destroyed.

"The physical evidence was 'purged without record,'" Bradshaw said.

Attorney Damon Baxley took on Bradshaw's case after the I-Team aired Bradshaw's story.

"It was the largest travesty of justice I had seen as far as the law enforcement agency and the way that they treated a victim," Baxley said.

Baxley said the destruction of evidence and the department's repeated failure to make contact with the suspect made prosecution impossible.

"The case had been so fumbled that no prosecution could be pursued. It would violate the gentleman's due process rights, because they've had multiple opportunities in law enforcement to make contact with him, investigate, and if they decided — arrest them for that particular charge, and they had not done so. Not to mention, obviously the destruction of all physical evidence," Baxley said.

While the terms of the settlement are confidential, Baxley said the outcome carries significance for other victims and survivors.

"From a victim's perspective, we feel like we have taken a step forward in the judicial arena to help other future plaintiffs in similar circumstances. And that was may more valuable than any amount of money," Baxley said.

The I-Team contacted Melbourne Police Department for comment and asked about any policy changes since first reporting on Bradshaw's case. The department has not yet responded.

Brian was also contacted by phone and by letter, outlining Bradshaw's allegations, giving him every opportunity to respond ahead of the I-Team initial investigation three years ago. He never did.

Bradshaw said this isn't over. She plans to push the new state attorney in Brevard County to see what else can be done. For now, she says she is focused on encouraging other survivors to speak out.

"Don't stop fighting. Get loud. When they tell you to shut up, get louder. When it seems impossible and you can't find anybody to help you, listen, don't give up because you showed up, Kylie," Bradshaw said. "This shouldn't be a fight anybody has to do."

Full Statement from Melbourne Police Chief David Gillespie

From I-Team's Original Investigation in 2023

"In October of 2022, Mrs. Bradshaw contacted the Melbourne Police Department and inquired as to the status of an investigation where she was the victim in 1990. Mrs. Bradshaw advised that she had been told by a family member that the suspect had been arrested and subsequently died. However, in 2022, Mrs. Bradshaw saw the suspect and contacted the police department to learn more about the investigation. Detectives looked in to (sic) the case and discovered that the suspect had never been arrested. A detective from the Major Crimes Division was immediately assigned to follow up the (sic) case that had occurred more than 32 years ago. The Detective attempted to retrieve evidence, reports and records from the case. The Detective also conducted additional investigative steps including interviewing the suspect, who denied involvement. In January of this year, the Detective presented the case to the State Attorney’s Office for prosecution. In April, the State Attorney’s Office notified Mrs. Bradshaw that they were not able to prosecute the case.

As Chief of Police, I empathize with Mrs. Bradshaw that the case is not able to be prosecuted. I have met with Mrs. Bradshaw to listen to her concerns and I understand her frustration. As a result, I ordered the Staff Inspections supervisor of the Professional Standards Unit to conduct an audit of the case, in an attempt to locate evidence and/or be able to provide additional details about what occurred with the investigation in the time frame when the incident occurred. Until the audit is concluded, I am not able to provide further comment."

Full Statement from the State Attorney's Office

From I-Team's Original Investigation in 2023

"The circumstances surrounding this incident are heartbreaking, and we share the victim’s disappointment in not being able to bring this offender to trial.

While we strive for the desired result in every case, this isn’t always possible. Our attorneys and advocates try hard to explain the complex legal issues that produce these outcomes, but also understand the frustration and deeply personal response felt by victims and their families.

Every criminal complaint that our office receives undergoes a careful and thorough review by experienced prosecutors to determine if they reasonably believe the alleged crimes can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt at trial. When the review process finds the required evidence is not sufficient, prosecutors are ethically and legally obligated not to pursue prosecution of the defendant.

In this instance there are several evidentiary and legal issues for the State to overcome to reach the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard. Most significant is the inability to obtain contemporary DNA analysis on the offender standards (sexual battery evidence kit) collected at the time of the offense, as those materials were purged by the investigating agency and are no longer available. As a result, there is no physical evidence to present at trial.

Further, the lead obstacle to filing this case surrounds the amount of time that has passed since the offense was reported to law enforcement and Mr. ________ was identified as the offender in 1990, until it reached our office for review in 2023. Well-established constitutional due process law requires the State to move forward with a prosecution of a known offender within a reasonable period of time. In this case the offender was known to law enforcement, remained available to be arrested, and there is no legal justification for the more than 30-year delay in presenting the case.

We have a good faith belief that the trial court would ultimately grant a motion for dismissal based on this constitutional challenge, legally barring us from any effort to pursue prosecution now."

He appears to be trying to get a kiss. Maybe he’s just asking for her number. She even seems polite. Politely rejecting his advances.

Until he put his hands on her neck! Was he trying to break her neck and kill her?

After the beatdown, she reached over and retrieved her keys. So she had her keys already in her hand, as advised to women.

A serial sex offender who was being monitored by the Metropolitan Police has been found guilty of murdering two women and raping a third in London.

Simon Levy killed Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo, 53, in March 2025 and 39-year-old Sheryl Wilkins five months later.

The 40-year-old man also raped a third woman in January 2025, before the murders, in the same Tottenham car park where Wilkins was later found dead.

During his trial at the Old Bailey, jurors heard Levy had a string of convictions for attacking women dating back to July 2018, including one carried out against a prison officer in 2022.

The court heard how Levy, from Tottenham, targeted the three vulnerable women, all of whom carried out street sex work in order to fund drug addictions.

He declined to give evidence during his trial but pleaded not guilty to the two murders, as well as two counts of rape, grievous bodily harm with intent, and non-fatal suffocation against the surviving woman.

The jury, which was given a majority direction in the trial, found him guilty of all charges after 13 hours of deliberation.

Members of the victims' families wept as the verdicts were returned while the defendant, who had a pointed beard and was wearing sunglasses, gave no reaction.

In court, judge Mark Lucraft KC adjourned sentencing until Wednesday 12 August and remanded Levy into custody.

The Met, British Transport Police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have all admitted failings in how they dealt with Levy, who was on bail as his attacks on women escalated to double murder.

London's Victims' Commissioner, Andrea Simon, said she was "appalled by the litany of failures to manage a prolific offender like Levy".

She told BBC News: "I'm keen now to see how we can uncover every key moment when there was an opportunity to assess the harm Levy posed to women by every justice agency involved, not just the police, and every critical opportunity there was to intervene."

Crime and Policing Minister, Sarah Jones, said: "The fact that Levy was able to inflict such devastating harm after being freed by police and the courts is deeply concerning.

"It raises serious questions that require urgent answers."

She said that failures must be identified so they are not repeated.

Helena Croft, the chief executive officer of StreetlightUK charity, said this case "demonstrated the need to treat women involved in the sex industry as women at risk of serious violence".

She said there were "missed opportunities around listening to frontline services, information sharing, and making full use of specialist organisations that had established relationships with the women most at risk".

The Metropolitan Police confirmed to the BBC that it believed Wilkins' death could have been avoided had there not been multiple points of failure in the handling of Levy.

The Met failed to treat Valencia-Trujillo's death as a murder, despite arresting Levy soon afterwards and finding his DNA on her body, until after Levy killed again.

In February, Levy was convicted of sexually assaulting 10 women on London's Tubes and trains, as well as a female prison officer in HMP Brixton, with details of that trial now reportable for the first time.

Speaking after the verdicts were given, Det Ch Insp Neil John from the Met said: "Simon Levy is a dangerous and predatory offender.

"His crimes were calculated, cruel and deeply disturbing. Throughout the trial, he has shown complete disregard for the victims and victim-survivor, despite being fully aware of the lasting and devastating impact of his actions."

He described the investigation as "complex and challenging" but said "my team and I have been steadfast in our professionalism and dedication".

Standing alongside Wilkins' two sisters and Valencia-Trujillo's daughter, he asked for any other victim-survivors of Levy to come forward.

Valencia-Trujillo's children said she was a "big character" who was "full of life" and was said to be a "much-loved" member of the community with a love of salsa dancing.

Wilkins' family said she was a much-loved woman who is missed every day by those who knew her.

The Met said since the launch of the investigation, detectives had exhausted numerous lines of enquiry – including working with coroners – to identify whether Levy was responsible for any similar, unsolved incidents, including deaths.

Police have said while they are yet to find anything new on Levy, they emphasised they had significantly strengthened their training and response to violence against women and girls, along with their specialist victim support services.

Two Met officers are under investigation by the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) for their decision in August 2024 to downgrade Levy from a high-risk sex offender to a medium-risk.

A police constable had been served with a gross misconduct notice and a detective sergeant with a misconduct notice.

The IOPC said it would be investigating how Levy was managed from his first conviction in September 2021 up to his arrest in September 2025.

"We are examining whether action could or should have been taken to prevent his reoffending, and if all officers involved in his management followed policies, procedures, and training."

The IOPC stressed that the notices indicated the officers' actions were under investigation and did not mean disciplinary proceedings would follow.

The investigation will also consider whether any lessons can be learned or changes introduced at an individual, force-wide or national level.

The British Transport Police (BTP) said that two of its officers have been moved to other roles due to their "incompetence" in handling the case.

BTP Assistant Chief Constable Charlie Doyle said: "It is clear that opportunities to expedite the investigation were missed and we have amended our procedures to address these issues to ensure that repeat offenders are dealt with expeditiously, and that linked offences are prioritised more effectively."

Lisa Ramsarran, chief crown prosecutor for the CPS, said: "Our actions fell short of the standards that victims, families and the public are entitled to expect.

"In particular, there were points where we could and should have taken a more robust approach to representations about bail, based on the information available.

"We cannot know what decisions the courts would have made had different or stronger representations been advanced. But we recognise our responsibility and we are sorry for the shortcomings we have identified."

Ramsarran said the cases had been handled against a backdrop of significant pressure on the criminal justice system, including busy court lists, late or incomplete information, and the need for agencies to make decisions quickly.

While that did not lessen responsibility for the failings, she said it was important to understand the circumstances in which they had occurred.

She said measures were being introduced to strengthen training, improve oversight of cases and enhance the handling of bail and risk assessments in serious sexual offence investigations.

Levy had attacked the three women while on bail for sex assaults on trains in London, and went on to carry out further assaults on public transport.

Ramsarran explained how Levy was convicted in February of sexually assaulting 10 women on London's Tubes and trains.

She added: "Nothing can undo the harm caused, but we hope these convictions provide some measure of justice."

Earlier this year, Levy, 40, was found guilty by a jury at Inner London Crown Court of groping 10 women on the Tube and an 11th while in prison.

Details of this trial can now be reported after his conviction at the Old Bailey.

The offences took place between April 2022 at the prison, followed by the Tube assaults between 24 October 2023 and May 2025.

He had already been convicted of sexually assaulting two women in 2018, which was why he was in prison in 2022.

The sex offender had lost sight in one eye in an attack in May 2024 and played on this, claiming that his partial sight made him unsteady on his feet and all contact was accidental on these crowded trains.

Levy's tactic was to tie a jumper or hoodie around his waist, strap his arm down, and then back towards his victim with his hand fully or partially covered so he could grope them.

One of the Tube assault victims told the court: "It wasn't long before I learned that my attacker was already known to the police for sexual violence and is a convicted sex offender.

"You could not begin to understand the horror I felt at hearing this.

"How could a male who does this so often and so brazenly be allowed to repeat his attacks?

"Knowing this made me feel even more unsafe, the possibility that I could encounter Simon Levy again made me fearful and the idea that he would harm more women and that there would be many more victims was unthinkable."

During the sentencing hearing in June for the Tube attacks, Judge Michael Evans told Levy : "You were on the Tube for one purpose only, to sexually assault women."

Levy was convicted of 11 counts of indecent assault, including grabbing the prison guard in 2022, and given an extended sentence consisting of a six-year jail term plus a three-year period on licence.

Citing police data, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) documented at least 470 “honor” killings in the country in 2025, including 126 in Sindh. Rights groups say the real number is likely to be even higher, especially in remote districts, where deaths may go unreported or be misclassified as suicides or accidents.

Mohammad Ramzan was on the night shift at a cement factory near Karachi when he received a call from home. His 20-year-old daughter, Khalida Chandio, had been shot dead in their village in Pakistan's southern Sindh province.

Now, along with Khalida's mother, Nabul, the devastated couple are trying to understand what happened. Nabul can barely hold back her tears. She says her daughter was taken from the house under cover of darkness and killed just a few hundred meters away.

The murder was filmed and the footage has been widely viewed on social media, even by the victim's helpless parents.

“Her screams still echo in my ears,” says Nabul. “We couldn’t save her,” she adds.

Police say Khalida was killed after being declared a "kari" - a Sindhi term used to accuse a woman of having an extramarital affair and often used by perpetrators to justify so-called "honour killings".

Police allege that her grandfather and her mother's brother (uncle) carried out the murder on the orders of a tribal elder. Three suspects have been arrested, while another is being sought. The case is expected to go to trial.

"If they believed my daughter had done something wrong, they should have handed her over to the police," says Ramzan, 55. "She would still be alive today. She could be with us or living in a shelter," he adds.

Five years ago, Khalida had married her cousin, the son of one of her mother's brothers (her uncle's son). But late last year, about five months before the murder, her husband, a factory worker in Karachi, failed to return home. Since no one could find him, Khalida returned to her parents' home in Tando Masti, a village in Khairpur district, about 450 kilometers from Karachi.

According to investigators, on the night of April 10, at a gathering of male relatives and villagers, she was accused of having an affair with another man. Police say the accusation was presented to a local council of elders (jirga), where she was declared a “kari.”

Investigators say that after this decision, three men dragged Khalida from the house and killed her.

Pakistani courts have banned traditional assemblies or councils of tribal elders from adjudicating criminal cases, but human rights organizations say these informal tribal assemblies continue to influence disputes involving women in rural areas of Sindh.

Khalida's death reflects a wider pattern of violence against women accused of bringing "dishonor" to their families. According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and the women's rights organization Sindh Suhai Sath, 112 "honor" killings of women were recorded in Sindh from January 1 to June 20 this year.

Citing police data, the HRCP documented at least 470 “honor” killings in Pakistan in 2025, including 126 in Sindh. Human rights groups say the real number is likely to be even higher, especially in remote districts, where deaths may go unreported or be misclassified as suicides or accidents.

Sindh Suhai Sath says the bodies of 30 unidentified women were found near the gates of the Sukkur Barrage irrigation system in 2024. The organization believes some of them may have been victims of "honor" violence, although the circumstances of their deaths remain unclear.

Asad Raza, a deputy inspector general of police who has served as police chief in Ghotki, Kashmore and Jacobabad districts, says that "honour" killings are rooted in deeply entrenched patriarchal structures, where women are often treated as the property of male relatives.

He adds that accusations of "kari" are still used, sometimes to resolve conflicts over land, inheritance or tribal rivalries.

"A woman can be declared 'kari' not because there is evidence against her, but because it creates a pretext to kill her and take her property or obtain compensation," says Raza.

According to him, the same patriarchal attitudes often influence criminal investigations.

"The victim is a woman, the accused is usually a man, those making the accusations are men, the community elders who decide the dispute are men, and often the investigating officer is also a man, raised with the same social mentality," he says.

Raza emphasizes that greater involvement of women is needed in the investigation and adjudication of gender-based violence cases.

"Increasing penalties alone will not put an end to these crimes. What matters is the consistent and consistent enforcement of the law."

Shazia Nizamani, a senior lawyer who has represented the families of victims, says that prosecution is particularly difficult when the accused is a close relative.

Witnesses are often reluctant to testify, while families face pressure to drop lawsuits or reach informal settlements.

Khawaja Naveed Ahmed, a retired judge, says that honor killing trials often fail due to poor investigations and poor presentation of the case by the prosecution during the trial. According to him, some cases are directly or indirectly linked to powerful feudal interests, where tribal chiefs and large landowners wield political influence.

"There must be a coordinated mechanism between investigators, prosecutors and the judiciary so that those responsible are held accountable," he says.

Khalida was buried in her family's village, but about 80 kilometers away is the remote Fattu Shaheed cemetery, known as Kariyan-jo-Qabristan, the cemetery of women declared "kari." Dozens of old graves, mostly without identifying marks, lie in this dust-covered burial ground.

A Sindhi journalist says that burials of women declared "khari" have become rarer in recent years, but the cemetery remains a grim reminder of this violence. When burials do occur, they are often carried out at night and the graves are left unmarked. No one is willing to speak publicly, fearing the influence of powerful tribal figures.

Not all women accused of being "kari" are killed as some manage to escape.

Shahzadi (name changed for security reasons), a 35-year-old teacher, left her village after marrying the man she loved, against the wishes of her family.

She says a tribal council decided that she and her husband deserved to die, forcing them into hiding.

For years they have moved from one rented house to another with their three children, rarely telling their neighbors their real names.

"I don't know if I'll still be alive tomorrow," she says. "Every knock on the door makes me think they've finally found us."

She once dreamed of educating the girls in her village. Now her only priority is keeping her children safe.

"There's no place I feel safe," she says. "We don't stay anywhere for long, because we know they're still looking for us."

In another case, in May this year, after a couple got married in Jacobabad district, armed men allegedly burned down more than 100 houses in the groom’s village, the Dawn newspaper reported. The attack showed how disputes over marriage and “honor” can escalate into collective punishment, leaving entire communities to suffer the consequences.

Naseer Memon, a writer and social analyst, says these killings are not about honor, but about control over women and, in some cases, denial of their right to inheritance and property. The practice continues, he says, because violence committed in the name of tradition still finds acceptance in some communities.

"This is not an 'honor' killing," he says. "It is unchecked brutality carried out without fear of punishment."

Asad Iqbal Butt, chairman of the HRCP, says honor killings reflect state failure.

"If the state establishes the rule of law and fulfills its responsibility to protect women, many of these lives could be saved," he says.

And in Tando Masti, Nabul says she will never get over the murder of her daughter.

"People say time heals the pain," she says. "But how can a mother ever forget that her daughter was killed? I live with that pain every day," she adds.