On April 14, two men entered Asma Firdous' home, cut off six of her fingers, slashed her arms and lips and then sliced off her nose. Before leaving the house, the men locked their 28-year-old victim inside.

Asma, from impoverished Kohaur Junobi village in Pakistan's south, was mutilated because her husband was involved in a dispute with his relatives, and they wanted revenge.

Her fate is familiar in parts of Pakistan's remote and feudal agricultural belts, where women are often used as bargaining chips in family feuds, and where the level of violence they face is increasing in frequency and brutality...

Pakistan is the world's third-most dangerous country for women, after Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, based on a survey conducted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

In its 2010 report, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says almost 800 women were victims of "honor killings" -- murders aimed at preserving the honor of male relatives -- and 2,900 women reported raped -- almost eight a day. The bulk, or almost 2,600, were raped in Punjab alone, Pakistan's most populous province.

And the numbers are rising: media reports say crimes against women have risen 18 percent in the year to May and the human rights commission believes its figures represent only a fraction of the attacks which take place across the country.

Dr. Farzana Bari, director of Gender Studies at Quaid-e-Azam University, says Pakistan's patriarchal society often condones discrimination against women, which is more prevalent among poor and uneducated rural families.

That mindset can often influence the police and judiciary, which sometimes turn a blind eye to honor killings or rapes carried out to "punish" women.

"I think honor killings are a symptom of vigilante justice," she said. "And vigilante justice occurs in an environment where the state is unable to enforce its writ."

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Editor's Note: Learn more about Women in Fundamentalist Islam here.