The grave of Gul Sama, who was stoned to death. Human rights groups say there are more than 1,000 “honour killings” in Pakistan every year

A ten-year-old girl in rural Pakistan was stoned to death by family members after a tribal council decided she had been planning to elope, according to local reports.

Gul Sama, a resident of the village of Shahi Makan, in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province, was killed on November 22. Local activists and residents were threatened with death by the tribal council, or jirga, if they spoke about it. However, social media posts showing the girl’s grave went viral with activists calling for justice. The police stepped have arrested the dead girl’s parents and Mushtaq Laghari, a cleric who conducted the funeral in secret.

“Her face and head were unrecognisable and she was brutally killed,” a resident of the village said.

In Pakistan’s conservative rural society, girls