AMMAN: A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murdering his 23-year-old sister in an apparent "honour killing", a judicial official said.

The unnamed suspect reportedly stabbed his sister 10 times in the heart on Wednesday in a village in the north-eastern governorate of Mafraq, said the official.

"He has confessed to murdering his sister because she disappeared from home for a month with a boyfriend," the official said. It was the seventh reported so-called "honour" killing this year, according to security officials.

In 2007, Jordanian authorities recorded 17 such murders, slightly up on previous years.

Killers in such cases, however, often receive light sentences if convicted, as the parliament has twice refused to reform the penal code despite pressure from human rights groups to end the near impunity of the perpetrators.