Honor Killings - Can Murders of Women and Girls Be Stopped?

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Honor KillingsCAN MURDERS OF WOMEN AND GIRLS BE STOPPED?

Each week brings horrific new headlines stating that, somewhere around the world, a woman or girl ha

killed by a male relative for allegedly bringing dishonor upon her family. According to the U.N

Commissioner for Human Rights, In the name of preserving family honor, women and girls are

stoned, burned, buried alive, strangled, smothered and knifed to death with horrifying regularity

tween 5,000 and 20,000 so-called honor killings are committed each year, based on long-held beliefs that any

who commits or is suspected of committing an immoral act should be killed to restore honor to he

ly. Honor killings are deeply rooted in ancient patriarchal and fundamentalist traditions, which some judicial s

legitimize by pardoning offenders or handing out light sentences. Human-rights organizations are demanding thernments and the international community

act more forcefully to stop honor killings,

but officials in some countries are doing

little to protect women and girls within

their borders.

With posters of murdered women as a backdrop,elderly Kurdish women participate in a rally in Istanbul,

Turkey, to protest so-called honor killings of youngwomen and girl s. Although condemned by the

government, honor killings mostly occur inTurkeys Kurdish region, where they are

part of traditional culture.

APRIL 19, 2011 VOLUME 5, NUMBER 8 PAGES 183-208 WWW.GLOBALRESEARCHER.COM

PUBLISHED BY CQ PRESS, A DIVISION OF SAGE WWW.CQPRESS.COM

E


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184 CQ Global Researcher

HONORKILLINGS

THEISSUES

185 Are honor killings a

form of domestic violence? Are governments doingenough to deter honorkillings? Is the international com-munity doing enough tocombat honor killings?

BACKGROUND

194 Early OriginsHonor killings occurredin pre-Christian and pre-Islamic times.

196 Medieval PrejudicesWomen continued to besubjugated during theDark Ages.

199 Killings SpreadHonor murders now occurwithin immigrant commu-nities in the West.

CURRENTSITUATION

199 Providing Shelter?Setting up womens shelterscan be controversial.

200 Legal EffortsSome courts are beginningto get tough on honorkillers.

OUTLOOK

202 Needed: Three PsExperts say prevention,protection and prosecutioncan help stop honorkillings.

SIDEBARS ANDGRAPHICS

186Honor Killings Reported

in 26 CountriesUp to 20,000 women and girlsare killed each year to restorefamily honor.

187 Female Murders Skyrocketin TurkeyMurders of Turkish womenjumped 1,400 percent inseven years.

188 Loss of Family Honor CanHave Dire ConsequencesIntense societal pressure driveshonor killers.

190 What Does Islam SayAbout Honor Killings?Islamic scholars say theQuran does not condonesuch murders.

195 ChronologyKey events since 1946.

196 Honor Crime Survivor Be-comes Womens ChampionAfter gang-rape, she refusedto commit suicide.

201 At IssueAre Muslims being unfairlystigmatized in honor crimecoverage?

208 Voices from AbroadHeadlines and editorials fromaround the world.

FORFURTHERRESEARCH

205 For More InformationOrganizations to contact.

206 BibliographySelected sources used.

207 The Next StepAdditional articles.

207 Citing CQ Global ResearcherSample bibliography formats.

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April 19, 2011

Volume 5, Number 8


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April 19, 2011 185www.globalresearcher.com

Honor Killings

THEISSUES

In the remote Pakistaniprovince of Baluchistan,three teenage girls

Hameeda, Raheema and Fauzia fell in love with the wrongpeople. They apparently want-ed to marry husbands of theirown choosing rather than themen selected by their localUmrani tribal leaders. Marry-ing without permission is con-sidered an affront to the honorof the tribe.

Enraged, tribesmen kid-napped the girls, along withtwo older female relatives ofthe girls, and drove them allinto the desert. The menthen dragged the teenagersout of the car, beat them andshot them. But the girls didnot die instantly, so their at-tackers allegedly threw theminto a ditch and buried themalive, covering them with sand

and rocks. When the olderwomen, aged 45 and 38, ob-jected, they too were shotand buried alive. 1

Two months later, after ahuman-rights organizationrevealed the murders, police openedan investigation. Several men were ar-rested, including the father, brothersand a cousin of the slain girls. But alocal politician defended the murdersas honor killings, justified by tradi-tion even though such murders have

been illegal in Pakistan since 2004.Nevertheless, Israrullah Zehr, a mem-ber of parliament from Baluchistan,claimed the killings were part of acenturies-old tradition and vowed hewould continue to defend them. 2

The five victims were just some ofthe thousands of women and girls aroundthe world who are murdered each yearin so-called honor killings: socially sanc-

tioned, premeditated murders usuallyby male relatives due to real or ru-mored premarital sex or infidelity or forhaving been raped or sexually abused.Women and girls are also killed for be-having in immoral ways such astalking to boys, refusing to accept an

arranged marriage or marrying outsideof their ethnic group. The killer be-lieves that his action cleanses the honorof his family and community.

Such killings occur when the honorof male members of a household isperceived to have been injured, saidI. A. Rehman, secretary general of theLahore-based Human Rights Commis-sion of Pakistan. 3

Every week brings newreports of unbelievably cruelhonor killings:

Hena Begum, a 14-year-oldBangladeshi girl, died in Feb-ruary after being publiclyflogged. Her crime? She hadreportedly been raped by a40-year-old married cousin. 4

After the rape, family mem-bers reportedly beat her andaccused her of having an af-fair with the cousin. The vil-lage council then sentencedher to 100 lashes. 5

Karima Metawe, 20, was ru-mored to have left her homein Alexandria, Egypt, withoutpermission last September. Hetwo brothers and an unclestrangled her to death in frontof her baby to restore theirfamilys honor. 6

As a punishment for talk-ing to boys, 16-year-old Me-dine Memi was secretly mur-dered by her relatives last yearin southeastern Turkey. Her

body was found in a 6-foot-deep hole under a chickenpen; her hands were tied andher lungs and stomach werefilled with soil, indicating shehad been buried alive. 7

Because so many honor killings arenever reported and because inter-national organizations are discouragedfrom keeping statistics on such polit-ically sensitive practices no oneknows how many honor killings occureach year. The United Nations Popu-

lation Funds commonly quoted esti-mate up to 5,000 women per year is thought to be a gross under-count. 8 The figure is closer to 20,000a year worldwide, according to DianaNammi, director of the London-basedIranian and Kurdish Womens RightsOrganization (IKWRO). Robert Fisk, aBeirut-based journalist, agrees. He wrotea multipart series on honor killings

BYROBERT KIENER

APPhoto/ShakilA

dil

Fourteen-year-old Noor Jehan lies in a Karachi hospital after beingshot five times and left in a ditch to die allegedly by two male

cousins. Jehan told reporters that when one of her cousins askedher to marr y him and her father refused to consent, the spurnedcousin claimed she had had sex with another man and tr ied tokill her to reclaim his honor. Jehan died a month later from anabdominal infection, becoming one of the 5,000-20,000 victims

murdered each year in so-called honor killings.


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after traveling throughout South Asiaand the Middle East studying the prac-tice, which he calls one of the lastgreat taboos. 9

During 2010 there were reportedly960 honor killings in Pakistan alone,according to the U.N. High Commis-sioner for Refugees. 10 In Syria activistsclaim up to 200 women die in honorkillings annually. 11 In Iraq, more than12,000 women died in honor killingsbetween 1991 and 2007, according toAso Kamal, a human-rights activistwith the Doaa Network Against Vio-lence. 12

And honor killings apparently areon the rise, according to many ob-servers. In February Turkeys justice min-ister shocked the country when he an-nounced that murders of Turkish womenhad jumped from 66 in 2002 to 953 injust the first seven months of 2009 a 1,400 percent increase. Some ofTurkeys media have labeled theslaughter Turkeys Shame. 13 PrimeMinister Recep Tayipp Erdogan con-demned the killings and said there wasno such thing as committing violencein the name of honor. But the killingsshow no signs of slowing down. 14

India has also seen a recent resur-gence in honor killing, often related tomen and women who violate Hindumarriage traditions, such as marrying apartner from a higher or lower caste. AsOxfam International has noted, every sixhours, somewhere in India, a young mar-ried woman is burned alive, beaten todeath, or driven to commit suicide. 15

Many experts object to calling themurders honor killings. There is noth-ing honorable about these killings, saysAisha Gill, a senior lecturer and experon honor killings at Londons Roe-hampton University. They are murders

HONORKILLINGS

Honor Killings Reported in 26 CountriesExperts say between 5,000 and 20,000 women and girls are killed each year in the name of family honor. Many of the

victims are tortured, burned, stoned or strangled. The murders, which often go unpunished, have occurred in at least 26countries nine of them Western countries with large immigrant communities, including the United States, Canada, the

United Kingdom and Germany.

Sources: United Nations; news reports

Countries Where Honor Killings Occur

Victims home country

Killings committed in:

Immigrant communities

UGANDAG ND

UGANDA

EGYPT

YEMEN

JOR DAN

KUWAITUW IT

KUWAIT

IRAQSYRIA

LEBANONE NON

LEBANONIRAN

PAKISTANBANGLADESH

INDIA

TURKEY

RUSSIA

ISRAELSR EL

ISRAELMOROCCO

DENMARK

BELGIUM

SWEDENWEDENS

WEDEN

UNITED KINGDOM

ITALY

ECUADOR

CANADA

UNITED STATES

BRAZIL

NETHERLANDS

GERMANY


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plain and simple. I see the term honorkillings as an oxymoron. Some preferto call the murders so-called honorkillings, femicide or shame killings.

According to Rana Husseini, a Jor-danian journalist and author of the riv-eting 2009 book Murder in the Nameof Honor, statistics are hard to pindown because many honor killingsare passed off as suicides, accidentsand disappearances. For instance, arecent study in Pakistan found that onein five homicides is an honor killing a total of 1,957 honor killings overfour years. But author Muazzani Nas-rullah, from Pakistans highly regardedAga Khan University in Karachi, noted,The problem is much more than whatis depicted in my paper. 16

Whatever the numbers, says Hus-seini, it is clear that honor killings areone of the most serious global prob-lems faced by women today.

Besides murder, other honor-relatedcrimes are committed against womenin so-called honor-based traditionalsocieties, including stoning, whipping,acid throwing and forced suicides. Ac-cording to Navi Pillay, U.N. High Com-

missioner for Human Rights, In thename of preserving family honor,women and girls are shot, stoned,burned, buried alive, strangled, smoth-ered and knifed to death with horri-fying regularity. 17

In cultures where honor killingsoccur, the killings are generally basedon the belief that women are objectswithout rights: Honor may be em-bodied in the societys women buthonor is the property of men, whoare responsible for protecting it. AsAmnesty International noted, Womenare considered the property of malerelatives and seen to embody the honorof the men to whom they belong.Womens bodies are considered therepositories of family honor. Awoman suspected of damaging thathonor may face punishment or death.

But their murderers often go scot-free. The laws in some countries le-

gitimize the murder of women bytheir husbands or relatives. In Syria,

for example, the penal code grantsimmunity or a greatly reduced sen-tence to a man who kills a femalerelative. Jordans penal code states,He who discovers his wife or oneof his female relatives committingadultery and kills, wounds or in-jures one of them, is exempted fromany penalty.

Men are sometimes the victim ofhonor crimes, but such instances aremuch rarer than honor crimes com-mitted against women. After a Pakistanicollege student married a woman with-out the permission of her higher-castefamily, the brides relatives fractured hislegs with an ax and slashed his noseand ears. The victim, MohammedIqbal, said his attackers screamed, Youhave mixed our honor with dirt asthey assaulted him. Last August, theTaliban stoned an Afghan couple todeath for committing adultery. 18

When there is prosecution, the pun-ishments often are lax. A U.N. Com-

mission on Human Rights report notedthat the great majority of the honorcrimes it examined in Pakistan wentunpunished either because no com-plaint was ever filed by relatives ofthe victims, or because the police re-fused to file a complaint. Even incases where murderers reportedlysurrendered themselves to police withthe murder weapon . . . no action wasever taken against them. 19

Honor killing has been reported inmore than a two dozen nations, butprimarily occur in South Asia and theMiddle East. In recent years honorkillings have spread to immigrant com-munities in Western countries, includ-ing France, Germany, Sweden, theUnited States and the United Kingdom(See map, p. 186.) In the U.K., for ex-ample, police investigate up to a dozenhonor killings of women each yearand estimate that at least 500 cases

Female Murders in Turkey, 2002 and 2009

Female Murders Skyrocket in Turkey

Nearly 1,000 women were murdered in Turkey in 2009 a 1,400 percent

increase from 2002, when a religiously conservative Muslim government took

power. Most of the murders were stabbings and shootings by family members.

No one knows how many of the murders were so-called honor killings, which

are illegal in Turkey, but womens-rights advocates say they were probably a

large proportion. The government says it has enacted far-reaching gender-

equality reforms, but womens groups point out that Turkey, with 74 million

people, has only 54 shelters for women escaping violence at home, compared

to Germany, which has 800 womens shelters for a population of 82 million.

Source: Dorian Jones, Turkeys Murder Rate of Women Skyrockets, Voice of America, February

2011, www.voanews.com/english/news/europe/Turkeys-Murder-Rate-of-Women-Skyrockets-1170

93538.html

66

0 200 400 600 800 1,000

2009

2002

953


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of other honor crimes, such as beatingsor sexual assaults, are committed againstwomen each year in Britain. 20

Although honor killings are most com-mon in Muslim countries, they also arewidespread in non-Muslim cultures. It isa mistake to see this as a Muslim-onlycrime, says Husseini. There are alsoChristians, Hindus and Sikhs that carryout and condone honor crimes againstwomen. In Turkeys Assyrian Christian

community, a newlywed couple was killedby the brides Christian brother, report-edly to restore the family honor. Thegroom was Muslim. 21

Violence in the name of honortranscends communities and religions,says Gill.

None of the worlds major religionscondones honor-related crimes. Thepractice has traditional and cultural

origins, according to experts. AlthoughMuslim scholars say there is no basisin the Quran for honor killing, thatdoesnt stop some Muslim killers fromtrying to justify their actions on reli-gious grounds. (See sidebar, p. 190.)

These murders are called honorkillings because they are seen by theirperpetrators as ways of re-establishingthe familys honor, which has beenlost by extramarital activity, willing or

unwilling, on the part of one of itsfemale members, wrote Kwame An-thony Appiah, a philosophy professorat Princeton University. 22

In one especially ghastly example, afather in Egypt paraded his daughtersdecapitated head through the streetsshouting, I avenged my honor. 23 APalestinian merchant explained to a re-porter, A woman shamed is like rotting

flesh. If it is not cut away, it will con-sume the body. . . . The whole familywill be tainted if she is not killed. 24

As the numbers of honor killingsdemonstrate, the pressure on familymembers to carry out these heinouscrimes is immense. Tradition is apowerful impetus for these perpetra-tors, explains Husseini. It supersedesfamilial love and makes many of thesekillers feel they have no choice but to

attempt to restore their fallen honor.A few victims are beginning to fight

back. Mukhtar Mai, a Pakistani womanwas gang-raped on orders of a villagecouncil to restore the honor of a localclan that said Mais family had violatedthe clans honor. But she refused to com-mit suicide, which was expected of herInstead, she helped to prosecute her at-tackers and has become a spokeswoman

HONORKILLINGS

What would lead a father or brother to murder abeloved daughter or sister, in the name of honor?The loss of honor in some traditional societies can

have a devastating impact on a family, and perpetrators ofhonor crimes often say intense community pressure drove themto murder a loved one:

I had to protect my children, said an anguished Pales-tinian mother of nine after putting a plastic bag over herdaughters head and slitting her wrists because the teenhad brought shame on the family by being raped andimpregnated by a brother. This is the only way I couldprotect my familys honor. 1

Honour is the only thing a man has, said a sorrowfulPakistani man, who had strangled his 23-year-old daugh-ter after she ran off with a man from a rival tribe. I canstill hear her screams; she was my favorite daughter. I

want to destroy my hands and end my life. 2

I did it to wash with her blood the family honor . . .and in response to the will of society that would not havehad any mercy on me if I didnt, said a 25-year-old Pales-tinian, explaining why he had hanged his sister. Societytaught us from childhood that blood is the only solutionto wash the honor. 3

According to the London-based Centre for Social Cohesion a nonpartisan organization that studies radicalization and ex-tremism in Britain and studied honor killings in immigrant com-

munities in the U.K. families with damaged honor can ex-perience a variety of consequences, including: 4

Ostracism The family can be ignored or ostracized bythe rest of the community. Their children may be reject-ed at school by fellow members of their cultural, ethnicor religious group.

Economic damage The family may receive smallerdowries for their children. In some cases, shops and busi-nesses can be boycotted or even physically attacked bycommunity members who believe their collective honorhas also been tarnished.

Political consequences Community leaders and politi-

cians can lose votes, prestige and influence. Loss of self-esteem Family members can become de-

pressed or suicidal. Feelings of shame can hamper theirinteractions with neighbors and friends and negatively af-fect their work, possibly causing further damage to theirsocial standing.

1 Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, Palestinian girls murder highlights growing numberof honor killings, Knight Ridder, Nov. 16, 2003.2 Robert Fisk, Invisible Massacre: The Crimewave that Shames the World, TheIndependent, Sept. 7, 2010, www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/invisible-massacre-the-crimewave-that-shames-the-world-2072201.html.3Yotam Feldner, Honor Murders Why the Perps Get off Easy,MiddleEast Quarterly, December 2000, pp. 41-50.4 Crimes of the Community: Honour-Based Violence in the UK, Centre for So-cial Cohesion, 2010, www.socialcohesion.co.uk/files/1229624550_1.pdf.

Loss of Family Honor Can Have Dire ConsequencesIntense societal pressure drives many honor killers.


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for the thousands of women who havesilently suffered at the hands of so-calledhonor killers. (See sidebar, p. 196.)

More and more girls and women

are being killed every day, and thereis so little awareness, punishment orjustice, she explains to a visitor in thewomens shelter and girls school shehas built in rural Punjab. The worldhas to hear their cries. We owe themthat much at the very least.

As women around the world contin-ue to suffer at the hands of attackersbent on restoring family honor, hereare some of the questions being asked:

Are honor killings a form of do-

mestic violence?

The chilling murder of 16-year-oldCanadian Muslim schoolgirl Aqsa Parvezmade headlines around the world in 2007.For many it had all the hallmarks of anhonor killing: She allegedly was stran-gled by her father for refusing to weara hijab, a traditional Muslim headscarf.Earlier, she had left home and soughtrefuge in a shelter after telling her friendsher father was going to kill her. 25

Many, however, viewed Aqsas mur-

der as nothing more than an act ofdomestic violence. Women are killedin many societies, but the media aretoo quick to label every Muslim-on-Muslim murder an honor crime, saysMohamed Elmasary, president of theCanadian Islamic Congress. I dont wantthe public to think this is really an Is-lamic issue or an immigrant issue, hesaid. It is a teenager issue. 26

Sheik Alaa El-Sayyed, imam at theIslamic Society of North America inMississauga, Ontario, agreed. The bot-

tom line is, its a domestic violenceissue, he said. 27

Both men claimed that instantly la-beling the killing an honor crime un-fairly stigmatizes Muslims. We, asMuslims, are Canadians, and weshould be dealt with just like every-one else, El-Sayyed said. We haverights, duties . . . pros and cons . . .just like all other human beings. 28

Others disagree. Like many other Mus-lims, they are in denial, explains Phyl-lis Chesler, a professor emerita of psy-chology and womens studies at the

Richmond College of City University ofNew York who conducted two studieson honor killings for the Middle EastQuarterly. Too many Muslims are claim-ing that honor killings are simply do-mestic violence. My investigations showthat in case after case honor killings arequite distinct from domestic violence. 29

Chesler insists: Western domesticviolence and honor killings are not thesame. An honor killing is a conspira-cy planned and carried out by the vic-tims family of origin who view the

killing as heroic. Daughter-stalking,daughter-beating and daughter-killingis not a Western cultural pattern, noris it valorized. In the West, wife- anddaughter-killers are considered criminals,not heroes; wife-killers are not assistedby their parents or in-laws.

She and others list several charac-teristics of honor killings that distin-guish them from domestic abuse:

Planning: Honor killings often fol-low death threats and may be care-fully planned and premeditated. Do-mestic violence murders usually are

spontaneous crimes of passion.Reason: The motive given for honor

killings is usually that the victim hasdishonored the spouse or familyHonor is rarely, if ever, a reason givenfor domestic killings.

Perpetrator: The perpetrator of anhonor killing usually does not act aloneas in domestic violence. There is ei-ther an explicit or implicit approval oreven encouragement by other mem-bers of the family to commit the mur-der, noted University of California

Berkeley, researcher Rochelle L. Ter-man. This is because honor must berestored for the collective, not just theindividual. 30

Perception: While domestic violence is rarely celebrated, many of thosewho commit or assist in honor killingsshow little or no remorse. Indeed, aTurkish study of 180 prisoners convict-ed of honor killings revealed that none

Police present four male relatives of Saima Bibi, 17, who died Jan. 21 in the Punjab city ofBahawalpur, Pakistan. The men are charged with torturing and electrocuting Bibi to death inthe name of family honor. She had eloped with a lower-caste neighbor, and a village council

ruled that death was the appropriate punishment. Although honor killings are illegal inPakistan, the U.N. says nearly 1,000 Pakistani women and gir ls were victims in 2010.

Reuters


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regretted their actions. In some cases,the victims relatives even praised theperpetrator, said Mazhar Bagli, an as-sociate professor of sociology atTurkeys Dicle University, who super-vised the study. 31

While some experts, such as Chesler,note that honor killings are commit-ted mainly by Muslims against Mus-lims, it is important to note that they

can occur across many religions andraces. Terman has identified honorkillings among Muslims, Christians,Jews, Yazidis, Druze, Sikhs, Hindusand nonbelievers. 32

Because so-called honor killingsare prevalent among Muslim societies,there is the misconception that theyare condoned by Islam, says Hus-seini, the Jordanian journalist and au-

thor ofMurder in the Name of HonorNowhere in the Quran or in anymajor interpretation of Sharia laws arehonor killings prescribed, she saysFurthermore, many reputable Islam-ic scholars and clerics have spokenout against the practice of honorkillings, noted Terman. 33

However, some Muslim governmentsdiscourage discussion of the topic. The

HONORKILLINGS

Because so many honor killings occur in predominantly Mus-lim countries, many people assume Islam sanctions mur-ders in the name of family or tribal honor. But, according

to Islamic experts, the Quran does not support those claims.Nothing in the Quran allows honor killings, says Muzammil

Siddiqi, chairman of the Islamic Law Council of North America. Theyare totally un-Islamic and have nothing to do with the religion.

In fact, he says, the Quran states: Never should a believerkill a believer. Take not life, which Allah hath made sacred,except by way of justice and law. And while the Quran doesteach that a couple who commit adultery should both be floggedwith a hundred stripes, it does not demand death.

Furthermore, says Siddiqi, Nowhere in the Quran is a familymember or anyone but a government authority authorized to carryout any kind of punishment.

Sheikh Muhammad Al-Hanooti a Muslim scholar andmember of the Islamic judicial body, the North American FiqhCouncil explained that in Islam even in the case of capi-tal punishment, only the government can apply the law throughthe judicial procedures. No one has the authority to executethe law other than the officers who are in charge. 1

Such principles contradict what many Muslim honor killersclaim: That a man whose family honor has been sullied by a

woman must kill her in order to restore honor.Max Gross, adjunct professor at Georgetown Universitys

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Studies,

says, Many critics of Islam point to the Quran or spurious ver-sions of the hadith, the so-called teachings of Muhammad,claiming that Islam justifies honor killings. But scholars agreethere is no justification in the Quran for these killings. On thecontrary, Muhammad emphasized forgiveness over revenge.

In addition, honor crimes often are carried out based onrumors or suspicions that a female has behaved in an immoral

way. However, the Quran forbids anyone from being punishedfor wrongdoing without conclusive proof: And those who launcha charge against chaste women, and produce not four wit-nesses, . . . flog them with eighty stripes and reject their evi-dence ever after . . . for such men are wicked transgressors.

Nilofar Bakhtiar, a former adviser to Pakistans prime minis-ter, has said that using Islam to justify honor killings is rubbishand blamed such crimes in Pakistan on the feudal tradition, theculture and the tribal system. She claimed that men found it

very convenient to say that what they dont want to do is againstIslam and what they want to do is in the name of Islam. 2

Sayyid Syeed, National Director for the Office for Interfaithand Community Alliances for the Islamic Society of North Amer-ica, says, Historically, tribal practices such as honor killings

were carried out by practitioners who mistakenly believed themto be inspired by Islam.

While the view that women are the property of men, with

no rights of their own, does not appear in the Quran, it isdeeply rooted in Arab tradition, experts say. Such attitudes fa-cilitate honor crimes, as has Shariah law, which treats womenas less than the equals of men.

But as Kwame Anthony Appiah, a Princeton philosophy pro-fessor, has noted: There is almost universal agreement amongqualified interpreters of Islam that honor killing is un-Islamic. 3

Other high-profile Muslims, including Syrias Grand Mufticleric Ahmad Hassoun, have condemned honor killings. 4AndLebanons senior Shiite cleric, the late Grand Ayatollah Mo-hammed Hussein Fadlallah, last year called the practice of mur-dering a female relative for alleged sexual misconduct a vi-cious phenomenon. He issued a fatwa, or a religious ruling,forbidding honor killings. Such crimes, he said, are considered

in Islam as one of the Kabair [severe sins] whose perpetratordeserves to enter Hellfire in the afterlife. 5

Robert Kiener

1 Honor killing from an Islamic perspective, OnIslam, Feb. 22, 2011, www.onislam.net/english/ask-the-scholar/crimes-and-penalties/retaliation-qisas/174426-honor-killing-from-an-islamic-perspective.html.2Jan Strupczewski, Men distort religion to justify honour killings, Reuters,Dec. 8, 2004, www.ncdsv.org/images/ExpertsMenDistoryReligion.pdf.3 Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Honor Code (2010), p. 153.4 Rasha Elass, Honor killing spurs outcry in Syria, The Christian ScienceMonitor, Feb. 14, 2007, www.csmonitor.com/2007/0214/p07s02-wome.html.5 Fatwa against honor killings, VOA News, Feb. 18, 2010, www.voanews.com/a-41-2007-08-13-voa3-84654512.html.

What Does Islam Say About Honor Killings?Most scholars say Quran does not condone honor crimes.


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IKWROs Nammi explains, Discussionsabout honor killings in Muslim com-munities have been taboo for a verylong time. Indeed, some activists who

are identifying honor killings are ac-cused of stigmatizing Arab communi-ties. They are also accused of perpet-uating a Western view of their societiesas primitive or backward.

And Islamists who seek to cover upthis sin against Muslim girls and womenattack those who would dare expose itas Islamophobes, says Chesler.

On the other hand, some womens-rights advocates argue that honor killingsmust be seen in historical perspective.Until thirty years ago, it was common

to hear about honor killings amongItalians. But now when a man kills hiswife, they call it a crime of passion,said Italian journalist Cinzia Tani. Itsthe same concept taking different names:A man kills a woman of his family inorder to assert his control over herbody. The only difference is that backthen the homicide of a woman was100 percent acceptable. 34

Canadian journalist Chris Selley saidthe world should abandon this ridicu-

lous, self-indulgent debate over the tax-onomy of honour killings. Those onthe left who abhor the term are rightabout one thing: A good few of thepeople who constantly shout it fromthe rooftops are mostly interested indemonizing Islam. But that doesntchange the fact that honour killingscan over shrieking objections fromfeminists rather easily be distin-guished from other cases of domesticviolence. . . . Ultimately who careswhat we call it? 35

John Esposito, an authority on Islamat Georgetown University and the au-thor of the 2010 book The Future of

Islam, and Sheila B. Lalwani, a researchfellow at Georgetown University, noted,Violence against women is a globalphenomenon, not a religious one. Nev-ertheless it deserves the attention ofevery religious leader and responsible

voter; anything less contributes to the

denial and complacency that permits itto persist. 36

Are governments doing enough

to deter honor killings?Many womens advocates say gov-

ernments are not doing enough to stopthe slaughter of between 5,000 and20,000 women a year in honor killings.For example, says Nammi, the Iran-ian and Kurdish womens advocatemany states condone honor killing. Itsa disgrace that these laws still exist.

Indeed, many countries have lawslegalizing the murder of women bytheir relatives. For example, Article 220of the Iranian Criminal Code states: If

a father or his male ancestors kill their children, they will not beprosecuted for murder. Last year onInternational Womens Day, U.N. HighCommissioner for Human Rights Pil-lay said, The problem [of honor killings]is exacerbated by the fact that in anumber of countries, domestic legalsystems . . . still fully or partially ex-empt individuals guilty of honor killingsfrom punishment. 37

For example, in Kuwait, He who

surprises his wife in the act of adul-tery . . . or surprises his daughter,mother or sister in the act of sexualintercourse with a man and immedi-ately kills her . . . shall be punishedby prison for a period not more thanthree years, according to Article 153of the Penal Code. 38

The penal code in Jordan says, [H]ewho discovers his wife or one of hisfemale relatives committing adulteryand kills, wounds or injures one ofthem is exempted from any penalty.

Article 98 provides for a reduced sen-tence if the crime was committed inextreme rage. 39

In Syria, Article 548, which limitedsentences for honor killings to oneyear, was replaced recently with a lawthat mandated a minimum sentence oftwo years. 40

In Haiti, a husband who immediate-ly murders his wife after discovering her

inflagrante delicto (committing adultry)in the conjugal abode is to be pardonedA wifes murder of her husband in similar circumstances is not excused. 41

Similar laws exist and have ex-isted throughout Latin AmericaAfrica and Asia. Until 1980 in Colom-bia, a husband could legally kill hiswife for committing adultery. In Braziuntil 1991 wife killings were consid-ered non-criminal honor killings. 42

Although there has been pressureto reform such laws, there has beenlittle action. In Jordan activists com-plained that lax laws encourage honorcrimes. The current law is nothingless than an endorsement for mur-

dering women and girls, said NadyaKhalife, a womens-rights researcher atHuman Rights Watch. The women ofJordan need protection from these vicious acts enshrined in law, not pref-erential treatment for their killers. 43

In response, Jordans Justice Min-istry announced it would set up a spe-cial tribunal to hear these cases. Thatsnot enough, say activists. Jordanneeds to send a strong message toperpetrators that they can no longer

get away with murder. It should startby amending the penal code to re-flect the seriousness of these crimesand treat them the same as otherkillings, said Khalife. 44 Efforts to re-form Jordans honor killing laws haverepeatedly failed.

Why have these archaic, discrimi-natory laws been so hard to change?In many cases legislators are reluctantto offend fundamentalist and conser-vative factions. As the global advocacy movement Violence Is Not Our Cul-

ture explains, As a result of theincreased politicization of culture andreligion in recent years, governmentsare increasingly afraid to combat hard-line and conservative elements in theirsocieties. 45

A Jordanian parliament member whoopposed reforming honor crime lawsspoke for many when he saidWomen adulterers cause a great threat


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to our society because they are themain reasons that such acts take place.. . . If men do not find women withwhom to commit adultery, then they

will become good on their own.46

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrovechoed that view. In 2009 after learningthat seven young women had been shotin the head by male relatives and theirbodies dumped by the roadside, he saidthey deserved to die. Claiming the womenhad loose morals, Kadyrov said, If awoman runs around and if a man runsaround with her, both of them are killed.He also suggested that a man should beable to murder his daughter if she dis-honors the family. If he doesnt kill her,

what kind of man is he? He brings shameon himself! Kadyrov said, according toBritiansIndependentnewspaper. 47

Many worry that Kadyrovs approvalof honor killings will encourage moremurders. What the president says islaw, said Gistam Sakayeva, a Chechenwomens-rights activist. Because thepresident said this, many will try togain his favor by killing someone, evenif there is no reason. 48

There have been some small vic-

tories, however. In 1993, Tunisiastrengthened its laws governing honorcrimes. There have been no docu-mented cases of honor crimes in Tunisiafor the last 20 years. 49 Turkey hasalso reformed legislation and is regu-larly giving life-in-prison sentences tohonor killers.

In addition to lax legislation, weakor nonexistent prosecution also per-mits honor killings to persist. As TheSt. Petersburg [Fla.] Times noted, Po-lice rarely investigate honor crimes,

and the handful of perpetrators whoare arrested often receive only tokenpunishments. In some settings policemay overtly or covertly champion thekillers as vindicated men. Elsewhere,police act within a network of con-spirators who benefit economically fromhonor killings. 50

Says IKWROs Nammi, Even if lawsare changed, many countries are re-

luctant to investigate and prosecutehonor killers. Time after time thesekillings are ignored. In Pakistan, forexample, honor killings are recognized

as a punishable crime, but the laws areonly occasionally enforced. Accordingto a recent study, only 10 percent ofPakistans law enforcement personnelrealize that the nations laws prohibithonor killings. 51

In fact, one remote rural villagecourt, or jirga, in Pakistan, worriedthat reporting such killings would de-fame the region, ruled in 2006 thatanyone reporting an honor killing tothe court or the police should bekilled. After ruling that a recent honor

killing was permissible, jirga mem-ber Malik Faiz Muhammad said, Westick to our verdict that honour killingis permissible, and those who commitit will not be liable to any punish-ment. We will also not allow the ag-grieved party to report the case to thepolice or file the case before a court.We will kill those who will violate thejirgaverdict. 52

On the other hand, the United King-dom, in response to a growing num-

ber of honor killings among immigrantcommunities, created a special unit toinvestigate closed cases to see if theymay have been honor killings.

The U.N.s Pillay said, The realityfor most victims, including victims ofhonor killings, is that state institutionsfail them and that most perpetratorsof domestic violence can rely on aculture of impunity for the acts theycommit. 53

Is the international community

doing enough to combat honorkillings?

According to a 2000 United Na-tions Population Fund (UNFPA) re-port, perhaps as many as 5,000 womenand girls a year are murdered bymembers of their own families inhonor killings. 54 That is the numbermost widely used when describinghonor killings.

But that estimate hasnt been re-vised since it was first released in 2000And it is so low as to be meaningless, according to many womens-

rights activists. It really gets me angrythat the United Nations has not seenfit to at least revise that figure, saysNammi. It is symptomatic of the U.N.sinaction on honor killings.

Its very hard to extract the statisticof honor killing from the broader sta-tistic of the murder of women, saysAminata Toure, chief of the UNFPAsGender, Human Rights and CultureBranch. Also, states are not very keenon reporting these numbers. Howeverwe are looking at revising our estimate.

Other experts echo Nammi. SaysGill at Londons Roehampton Univer-sity, The U.N. has been helpful, butnot as effective as it should be in termsof ending violence against women. Itand other international organizationsneed to go beyond talking the talkand must demonstrate genuine polit-ical will to protect vulnerable womenWe need to move beyond rhetoricHow many more killings do we needfor something to be done?

Chesler of the City University ofNew York is blunter: The United Na-tions gets nothing done when it comesto honor killings. It hasnt even of-fered women fleeing honor killersshelter or protection. It is ineffective.

Not so, say U.N. proponents likeJordanian journalist and author Husseini. The U.N. has been pressing theissue of honor killing, she says, not-ing that Resolution 57/179, adopted bythe General Assembly in 2002, calledfor nations to investigate thoroughly

prosecute effectively and documentcases of crimes against women com-mitted in the name of honor and pun-ish the perpetrators. 55

Before that, in 1994, the U.N. Com-mission on Human Rights appointed aspecial rapporteur on violence againstwomen, who has gathered testimonyon honor killings in several reports sincethen. Also, both UNICEF and the U.N

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Development Fund for Women haveprograms to address honor killings.

The United Nations is accomplishinga lot by raising the issue of honor

killings [and] helping shed more lighton what used to be a taboo subject,says Husseini.

The United Nations cannot enact alaw within a country, points out Toure.We are doing much to advocate, edu-cate and urge states to have tougher lawsregarding honor killings and punish per-petrators. We also support womens or-ganizations to help them speak up.

The United Nations has also madehonor crimes a recognized form of vi-olence against women in international-

rights law. In 1979 the General As-sembly adopted the Convention onthe Elimination of all Forms of Dis-crimination against Women (CEDAW),now commonly viewed as an inter-national bill of rights for women. (Thetreaty came into force in 1981, andhas been ratified by every developednation except the United States.) 56

Honor killings violate rights thatCEDAW guarantees to all women, in-cluding the right to freely choose a

spouse and equality in marriage. Fur-ther, the treaty specifically obligatesstates to defend women from honorcrimes and requires states to disqual-ify honor as a legal defense in actscommitted against women. 57

Critics of the convention claim thatit is vulnerable to politicization. At arecent U.N. meeting to review Israelscompliance with CEDAW, some Israeliactivists attacked Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) forfailing to raise the issue of honor killings

in the Palestinian territories. Paula Kwe-skin, a legal researcher at the NGOMonitor, a Jerusalem-based researchgroup, claimed that by not reportingon local honor killings, These groupshave abandoned the women they pur-port to advocate for and, as such, haveonce again called into question thesincerity of their pursuit of universalhuman rights. 58

Nammi, the Iranian and Kurdishwomens advocate, said a CEDAW rep-resentative had glossed over thetopic of honor killings in her presen-tation at a recent international confer-ence on violence against women. WhenNammi asked her why, She told me

it was such a sensitive topic that itwas better not to talk too much aboutit. I think it was a case of politicalcorrectness gone too far.

Both critics and supporters of theUnited Nations and other internationalbodies acknowledge that no interna-tional court has sole jurisdiction overhonor killings, making it the responsi-bility of each sovereign state to enforce

international human-rights law.When they have leverage, though

some international bodies do pressurecountries to reform their laws onhonor killings. For instance, Turkey foryears has been seeking membershipin the European Union. As one of the

prerequisites, the European Council in2004 pressured Turkey to increase sen-tences for honor killers.

Enforcement is the weak link inthis issue, says Gill. We have to putmore pressure on the international com-munity to hold states to account inrelation to international laws and legainstruments such as CEDAW. Other-wise the laws are meaningless.

Sixteen-year-old Medine Memi was buried alive last year in this hole in her backyard inKahta, a town in the Kurdish region of Turkey. Memi had been missing for 40 days and thehole had been cemented over when police were t ipped off that she had been killed by her

family. Her father and grandfather were later arrested for the murder. Memi hadrepeatedly told police that her grandfather was beating her for dishonoring the family by

talking to boys, but each time the police sent her home. Nearly 1,000 womenwere murdered in Turkey in 2009 a 1,400 percent jump over 2002 .

Womens-rights advocates say most of the deaths were probably honor killings.

Reuters/AnatoliaNewsAgency/Te

vfikParlak


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BACKGROUND

Early Origins

The tradition that gives rise to honorkilling, namely that a womanschastity is her familys property, can betraced to pre-Christian and pre-Islamicperiods. The 3000 B.C. Assyrian legal

code in Mesopotamia, for example, heldthat the father of a defiled virgin couldpunish her in any way he wished.

The 1752 B.C. Code of Hammurabi,the ancient Babylonian set of laws,justifies honor killing related to sexu-al crimes. It held that a woman ac-cused of adultery should throw her-self into the river, no matter howmuch, or how little, evidence there

was against her. If the finger is point-ed at the wife of a citizen on accountof another man, but she has not beencaught lying with another man, for her

husbands sake she shall throw her-self into the river, the code said. Ifthe woman drowned she was guilty,if she survived she was innocent.

Women had few rights in ancientRome. According to the Roman law ofPaterfamilias, a father had the right toexecute his unmarried daughter for

any indiscretion real or perceived.As one writer noted, A father held thepower of life and death over hisdaughter, and upon marriage that powerwas transferred to the daughters hus-band. Female adultery was a felonyunder Roman law, and the state ac-tively prosecuted family members andothers for not taking action againstadulterous female relatives. 59

Roman law held that married womenwere the property of their husbands andcould be sold into slavery, imprisonedor even killed at their husbands whim

The Roman statesman Cato advised ahusband who discovered his wife com-mitting adultery to kill her without re-sorting to the legal system: If you catchyour wife in adultery, you can kill herwith impunity; she, however, cannot dareto lay a finger on you if you commitadultery, for it is the law. 60

Shakespeares Titus Andronicus, setin Romes late empire, portrays theRoman general Titus killing his daugh-ter Lavinia to restore their honor aftershe was raped and mutilated. As hekills her he cries, Die, die Laviniaand thy shame with thee, and withthy shame thy fathers sorrow die!

In India, according to the ancientLaws of Manu, women were con-sidered immoral. Widows were en-couraged to throw themselves on thefuneral pyre of their husbands (acustom known assuttee) to preservetheir dead spouses honor and pre-vent themselves from living a lifeof dishonor. Hindu-Aryan husbands

were entitled to cut off the nose andears of wives suspected or foundguilty of infidelity a custom thateerily echoes various cases of honorcrimes in the Indian subcontinent acrossthe centuries. 61

Ancient Aztec laws prescribed a deathpenalty for women accused of adul-tery. The sentence was usually carriedout by strangulation or stoning. In an-cient Peru husbands were pardoned ifthey killed their wives after finding themcommitting adultery. Their wives, how-ever, enjoyed no such leniency: Theywere hung by their feet until dead ithey murdered their husbands. 62

Even children fell victim to what manysee as honor killings. In pre-IslamicArabia fathers sometimes killed theirinfant daughters to prevent them frompossibly bringing dishonor upon the fam-ily if they would one day be accused of

HONORKILLINGS

Continued on p. 196

Banaz Mahmod, 20, an Iraqi Kurd from south London, was raped, strangled with a boot lace,stuffed into a suitcase and buried in Birmingham, England, in 2006. Her father and uncle

later were convicted of ordering Mahmods murder because they thought she had dishonoredthe family by leaving an unhappy arranged marriage and falling in love with another man.

Two men hired by Mahmods relatives were later convicted of the murder.

APPhoto/MetropolitanPo

lice


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Chronology1940s-1980s

Initial efforts are launched tostrengthen womens rights.

1946United Nations establishes Com-mission on the Status of Womento promote womens rights aroundthe world.

1979U.N. General Assembly adoptsConvention on the Elimination ofall forms of Discrimination AgainstWomen (CEDAW).

1987India passes Commission of Sati(Prevention) Act, outlawing the once-common Hindu practice of sutteethe ritual burning of widows.

1990sInternationalwomens movement focuses onviolence against women and

girls, including honor killings.

1990To gain support from tribal leadersand religious fundamentalists, IraqiPresident Saddam Hussein exemptsmen from punishment for commit-ting honor killings.

1992CEDAW committee adopts GeneralRecommendation 19, which saysgovernments may be responsiblefor citizens private acts suchas so-called honor crimes if thestates fail to act with due dili-gence to prevent violations ofrights, or to investigate and punishacts of violence.

1993U.N. World Conference on HumanRights adopts the Vienna Conven-

tion, which holds that the humanrights of women and the girl-childare an inalienable, integral and in-divisible part of human rights.

1995Fourth World Conference onWomen in Beijing calls on statesto stop violence against womenresulting from harmful traditionalor customary practices, culturalprejudices and extremism.

1998U.N. Commission on HumanRights condemns honor killing.

1999Jordans Queen Noor holds publicdiscussions on honor killings andpronounces them inconsistent withIslam and Jordanian constitutionallaw, even though parliamentaryleaders claim such killings are jus-tifiable.

2000sPressure inten-sifies on governments to outlawand increase punishment forhonor killings.

2000U.N. estimates that up to 5,000women and girls are victims ofhonor killings each year. . . . Jor-danian lawmakers reject proposedlaw that would impose harsherpenalties on honor killers.

2002U.N. General Assembly Resolution57/179 calls for elimination ofcrimes against women committedin the name of honor. . . .Amnesty International reports thatat least three women a day arevictims of honor killings in Pak-istan, and that the murderers arerarely arrested.

2004U.K. reopens 117 cases involvingMuslim women who may havebeen victims of honor killings. . . .

After pressure from the EuropeanCouncil, Turkey increases punish-ments for honor killings. . . .U.N. adopts an updated versionof Resolution 57/179, acknowledg-ing that girls also can be victimsof honor crimes.

2006Village court in Pakistan rules thatreporting an honor killing to thecourt or the police is punishableby death.

2009European Parliament describesrise in honor crimes in Europe asan emergency. . . . ChechenPresident Ramzan Kadyrov justi-fies the murders of seven womenby claiming they had loosemorals and are the property oftheir husbands.

2010

Indian government investigates up-surge in honor killings. . . .Afghan government threatens toclose down shelters for womentrying to escape honor killings.U.N. High Commissioner forRefugees reports 960 honorkillings a year in Pakistan. Otherestimates indicate that the numberof honor killings worldwide isprobably close to 20,000.

2011

Womens-rights advocates inTurkey partly blame honorkillings for a 1,400 percent rise inthe femicide rate between 2002and 2009. . . . Phoenix-basedIraqi Muslim is convicted of de-liberately running over and killinghis daughter with his car aftershe refused to take part in anarranged marriage.


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sexual misconduct outside of marriage.As a proverb said, The dispatch ofdaughters is a kindness and the bur-

ial of daughters is a noble deed.63

This practice is condemned and ex-plicitly prohibited in the Quran, ac-cording to Islamic scholars.

But many experts on honor killingbelieve the Bible contains clear ref-erences to honor killing. For exam-ple, Leviticus 21:9 declares, And thedaughter of any priest, if she profaneherself by playing the whore, sheprofaneth her father. She shall beburnt by fire. Others argue that averse in Exodus (21:17) advocates

honor killing: And he that cursethhis father, or his mother, shall sure-ly be put to death.

Medieval Prejudices

Womens status remained low

throughout the Middle Ages. Inthe 13th century the Catholic theologianThomas Aquinas claimed that womenwere created only to be mens help-mate and promoted the idea that menshould use a necessary object, woman,who is needed to preserve the speciesand to provide food and drink. 64

The witchcraft hysteria that spreadacross Europe between the 14th and17th centuries exemplifies the extentof womens oppression. As Europeansocieties suffered from the Black Plague,

the 100 Years War and other troubledtimes, religious leaders blamed a raftof problems on witches. About 80 per-

cent of the 30,000 to 60,000 peopleexecuted for practicing witchcraft werefemale. As Catholic Inquisitors wrotein the 1480s, All wickedness is but

little to the wickedness of a woman. . . Women are . . . a structural de-fect rooted in the original creation. 65

While women continued to be sub-jugated elsewhere around the worldtheir lot began to improve somewhatin the West during the Age of Enlight-enment and the Industrial Revolutionin the 18th and 19th centuries.

During the 19th century increasingnumbers of women began taking jobsoutside the home. As a result, gov-ernments began to pass laws that both

protected them on the job and grant-ed them more and more legal rightsThe British Mines Act of 1842, for

HONORKILLINGS

Continued from p. 194

I

ts early morning in the tiny, rural Punjab village of Meer-wala, and a handful of women waits patiently outside theMukhtar Mai Womens Crisis Relief Center. Like thousands

of women before them, each of these women has come tothis center to seek out the help of an inspiring hero who hasbecome a symbol of strength and resistance to honor crimes.

Women arrive from all over the region with horribly scarredfaces, victims of acid attacks by suitors who claim the womenhave dishonored them by refusing their marriage proposals. Stillothers have had their ears or noses cut off a common formof punishment for supposed adulterers. The woman they havecome all this way to see is Muhktar Mai, a humble villager

who has become famous for courageously standing up for herown rights and now fights for the rights of Pakistani womenand women everywhere.

Her story made headlines around the world. In 2002 a vil-lage tribe, the Mastois, accused Muhktars 12-year-old brotherof bringing dishonor to them by walking unaccompanied witha 30-year old Mastoi woman. The brother later claimed that hehad been raped by the Mastois and that they were coveringup the rape by falsely claiming he had dishonored them. 1

The higher-caste tribal elders proclaimed that to restore theMastois honor, Mukhtar Mai should be gang-raped. They toldher father Ghulam that if he did not hand over Mukhtar, they

would rape all of his daughters.Accompanied by her father and her brother and clutching

her Quran, Mukhtar approached the tribal elders, head bowed,

and knelt in front of them. She assumed they would forgiveher, because I had done nothing wrong, she remembers.

Instead, four men grabbed her, dragged her into a nearby

shed and gang-raped her as others held her father and uncleat gunpoint. When the father protested, the men only laughed.

After the attack, the men threw Mukhtar, nearly naked, ontothe ground outside. Ghulam wrapped a blanket around hisdaughter and carried her home.

Defiled and shamed in front of her entire village, Mukhtarfelt she had only one option. Reporting the crime to the po-lice would only bring more shame to her family. Honor de-manded that she kill herself.

But after lying in bed for three days and contemplating sui-cide, Mukhtar took courage from her parents and the localmullah who condemned the rape and made a startlingdecision. She decided to live and report the attack to police.

I will fight them, she bravely told her parents. Her deci-sion was unheard of in rural Punjab, a world where men arerarely punished for such so-called honor crimes against women.

Six of the Mastoi men were found guilty of rape and sen-tenced to life imprisonment. The case has been appealed sev-eral times and is still winding its way through Pakistans courtsystem, but her attackers remain in jail.

Mukhtars initial courtroom victory made her an unlikelyhero for womens rights in Pakistan. But the meek, low-casteand illiterate woman somehow found the strength and courageto turn her personal tragedy into a triumph for others. She has

Honor Crime Survivor Becomes Womens ChampionAfter gang-rape, she refused to commit suicide.


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example, prohibited women from work-ing underground. John Stuart Mill, asupporter of womens rights and au-thor of the essay The Subjection ofWomen, introduced language in theBritish House of Commons calling forwomen to be granted the right to vote,but it did not pass.

More governments began givingwomen long-denied rights. The Mar-ried Womens Property Act of 1870and a series of other measures allowed

British wives to own property. In 1893,New Zealand became the first nationto grant full suffrage to women, fol-lowed over the next two decades byFinland, Norway, Denmark and Ice-land. The United States grantedwomen suffrage in 1920. 66

Honor killings, however, contin-ued. In India, for example, many

women were killed during the bloody

partition of the country between 1947and 1950. Indeed, as one writernoted, The partition years can beseen to be the beginning of the tra-dition of honor killing [in India] ona large scale. 67

Since 1945, when the U.N. wasfounded, the international human-rightscommunity has alerted the world to thecontinuing practice of honor-relatedcrimes and begun to encourage interestin change. Honor crimes have been

recognized as a form of violence againstwomen in international human-rightslaw because they violate womens se-curity, right to life and, freedom fromtorture and cruel, inhuman and de-grading treatment.

The U.N.s Convention on theElimination of all Forms of Discrim-ination against Women defined dis-crimination against women as any

distinction, exclusion or restrictionmade on the basis of sex which hasthe effect or purpose of impairing ornullifying the recognition, enjoymentor exercise by women, irrespective oftheir marital status, on a basis of equal-ity of men and women, of humanrights and fundamental freedoms inthe political, economic, social, cul-tural, civil or any other field.

Countries that ratified the treaty werelegally bound to abolish discriminato-

ry laws against women, take steps toend trafficking of girls and women andensure women equal access to politicaland public life.

But CEDAW did not specifically men-tion violence, so in 1992 General Rec-ommendation 19 defined gender-basedviolence as a form of discriminationagainst women and explicitly men-tioned honor crimes.

used her notoriety to build schools, operate a rape-crisis cen-ter and bring health care to her destitute part of the country.

In doing so she has struck a chord in the hearts of peoplearound the world. Mukhtar Mai proves that one woman canchange the world, said former American First Lady Laura Bush.Others have compared her to Martin Luther King, Gandhi andRosa Parks. 2

Mukhtar has received a slew of international awards, beenfeted by heads of state and Hollywood superstars and collab-orated on a memoir, called In the Name of Honor: A Memoir.

More and more women are turning to her for help insteadof surrendering themselves to their local panchayat, or tribal

council. She has almost single-handedly rescued countless Pak-istani women from the stranglehold of traditional justice. Againstall odds, this humble peasant woman has led a quiet revolu-tion, says noted Pakistani human-rights activist Aseed Gonur.She is empowering and emancipating women.

As Mukhtar herself often says, A mighty river is born froma rainstorm. It just takes someone to be that first drop of rain.

Robert Kiener

1 Khalid Tanveer, Thousands of women rally in Pakistan to support rapevictim, The Associated Press, March 7, 2005.2 Nicholas D. Kristof, The Rosa Parks for the 21st Century, The New YorkTimes, Nov. 8, 2005, p. A27.

Gang-raped on the orders of a Pakistani village council to restore alocal clans honor, Mukhtar Mai refused to commit suicide ,as is often expected in such cases, and chose instead tohelp prosecute her attackers. She has since become a

world-renowned opponent of honor killings.

APPhoto/AnjumN

aveed


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In 1993 the U.N. Declaration onthe Elimination of Violence AgainstWomen strengthened CEDAW byspecifically defining violence against

women as any act of gender-basedviolence that results in, or is likelyto result in, physical, sexual or psy-chological harm or suffering to womenincluding threats of such acts, coer-cion or arbitrary deprivation of lib-erty, whether occurring in public orin private life.

The declaration was introduced topressure states into acknowledging thathonor crimes were public, not pri-vate, matters. CEDAW also requiredstates to disqualify honor as a lega

defense for violence against womenArticle Four notes: States should condemn violence against women andshould not invoke any custom, tradi-tion or religious consideration toavoid their obligations with respect toits elimination.

Honor killing also was discussed in1995 at the U.N.-sponsored FourthWorld Conference on Women in Beijing. A resolution called for states totake urgent action to combat and elim-

inate violence against women, whichis a human-rights violation resultingfrom harmful traditional or customarypractices, cultural prejudices and ex-tremism.

In 2002 the General Assemblyadopted Resolution 57/179, whichurged states to investigate, docu-ment and prosecute honor crimesin order to work towards the elimination of crimes against womencommitted in the name of honor.It noted that states need to inten-

sify efforts to raise awareness of theneed to prevent and eliminate crimesagainst women committed in thename of honor, with the aim ofchanging the attitudes and behav-ior that allow such crimes to becommitted. 68 An updated versionof this resolution adopted in 2004acknowledged that girls also can bevictims of honor crimes.

HONORKILLINGS

Gruesome Aftermath

Honor crimes occur in South Asias Christian, Hindu, Sikh and Muslim communit ies.

In India, couples involved in socially taboo relationships or marriages outside of

their religion or caste are often murdered for sullying the honor of the family or

village. Thats why villagers in the northern Indian state of Har yana in 2008 allegedly

murdered Sunita Devi (top, left), 21, and her partner, Jasbir Singh, 22, who was from

another caste. In Pakistan, another type of honor crime involves disfiguring a woman

who shames a man. Ayesha Baloch, 18, (bottom, right) was dragged to a f ield

in 2006 and held down by her brother-in-law while her husband slit her upper lip and

nostril with a knife. The husband claimed she was not a virgin when he married her.

Reuters(both)


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Killings Spread

Although the United Nations, other

international organizations and themedia have raised awareness of honorkilling, the atrocities continue and arespreading to immigrant communities inEurope and the United States.

In the United Kingdom police es-timate that at least 12 women are mur-dered annually in honor killings. Britishpolice are training officers to recog-nize the tell-tale signs of such crimes.Honour-based violence is complicat-ed and a sensitive crime to investi-gate, said Det. Chief Inspector Gerry

Campbell of the Metropolitan Police.Its fathers, brothers, uncles, mums andcousins, and the victim potentialvictim has a fear of criminalising ordemonising their family so they can bereluctant to come forward. 69

With honor kil lings increasingthroughout Europe (mostly within Mus-lim immigrant communities), the re-gion is only beginning to come togrips with the phenomenon. In 2009the European Parliamentary Assembly

described the outbreak of honor crimesin Europe as an emergency. Its Reso-lution 1681 noted, the problem, farfrom diminishing, has worsened, in-cluding in Europe. It mainly affectswomen, who are its most frequent vic-tims, both in Europe and the rest ofthe world, especially in patriarchal andfundamentalist communities and soci-eties. It advised nations to create na-tional action plans to combat violenceagainst women, including violence com-mitted in the name of honor. 70

The United States is not immune. Overthe last several years at least six menhave been accused of committing honorkillings in the United States. 71 Faleh Al-maleki, an Iranian immigrant, recently wasconvicted of second-degree murder forrunning over his 20-year-old daughter,Noor, with his Jeep because she spurnedan arranged marriage and insisted onliving with her boyfriend.

CURRENTSITUATION

Providing Shelter?

One step forward, two stepsback. Adding insult to injury.Shameful and dangerous.

Thats how womens activists describethe recently proposed law in Afghanistan

that would turn the control of womensshelters over to the government. Underthe law a woman hoping to enter ashelter would have to obtain the ap-proval of eight different government of-

fices, and the shelters would be rununder the Ministry of Womens Affairs

In a country that already lacks safeand secure facilities to protect womenfrom honor-related crimes or domes-tic abuse, many see this law as a se-rious threat to womens lives and free-dom. Shelter administrators say theyalready get pressure from high-rankinggovernment officials on behalf of

The late Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah of Lebanon last year called honorkilling a vicious phenomenon and issued a fatwa, or a religious rul ing, forbidding them. He

said such crimes are considered in Islam as one of the Kabair [severe sins] whoseperpetrator deserves to enter Hellfire in the afterlife.

AFP/Getty

Images/JosephBarrak


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HONORKILLINGS

families who want the women backin their communities even whenits likely that the women or girls willbe killed when they return, said Quil

Lawrence, a reporter for National Pub-lic Radio. 72

The proposed law has reignited thedebate about the legality of womens

shelters under Muslim law. In Octo-ber 2010 the Afghan Supreme Courtproclaimed that any woman who ranaway from home could be chargedwith adultery or prostitution unlessshe went to the police or a relativeshome. Also, a 2010 television report

alleged that womens shelters are frontsfor prostitution. 73

Age-old prejudices die hard. Youvegot a parliament, a cabinet [and] variousministries that are effectively controlledby conservative factions that think verymuch like the Taliban when it comesto things like womens rights, saidRachel Reid, Afghanistan researcher forHuman Rights Watch. 74

But in other countries, there aresome positive developments regardingsheltering women from honor crimes.

In 2010 Indias Prime Minister Man-

mohan Singh ordered a commissionto study which penalties for honorkilling should be increased, and thenations Supreme Court asked the na-

tional and local governments to reporton efforts to stop the crimes. The In-dian government should press aheadto strengthen its laws and make com-munity leaders liable for punishmentif their edicts incite so-called honorkillings, said Meenakshi Ganguly, South

Asia director of Human Rights Watch.Murder is murder, and customary sen-timent should not prevail over basicrights and the laws of the land. 75

After a surge in the number of honorkillings in northern India last year, vol-unteers banded together to rescue andshelter young men and women threat-ened with murder for marrying outsideof their caste. Named the Love Com-

mandos, the charity has grown to 2,000volunteers from all across India. 76

Marriage-related honor killings occurthroughout India. In many cases fami-

lies would rather kill their children thansuffer from the stigma of them marry-ing a partner considered unsuitable. Oftenvillage caste councils sanction the killings

Nearly every day brings news of caste-related honor killings. For example:

In Delhi last June a young couplewas tied up and tortured to deathbecause the man was from a lowercaste than his girlfriend. 77

Two months later a newlywedwas burned to death in NorthernIndia for marrying against the wish-

es of his family. 78

In January a young couple wasslaughtered and left in a field inTamil Nadu because they werefrom different castes. 79

The Love Commandos have rescuedhundreds of couples from possible mur-der and helped them to marry. In everynook and corner of the country thereare couples under threat, said LoveCommandos founder Sanjoy Sachdev. 80

Womens shelters have also sprung

up elsewhere, from Asia to Europe tothe United Kingdom. But much moreneeds to be done, according to rightsactivists. Turkey, for instance, has only54 shelters for a population of 74 mil-lion. 81 Until we can wipe out thisbarbaric practice we need to protectand shelter those who are most vul-nerable, says Pakistani activist Maiwho runs her own shelter in the ruraPunjab and narrowly escaped being avictim of an honor killing.

Legal Efforts

Womens-rights groups say someprogress has been made recent-ly in attacking the problem of honorkillings. Both the media and womens-rights activists have helped shine alight on this problem, which has re-

Continued on p. 202

Womens-rights activist Saltanat Shalkibayeva holds up a pic ture of 16-year-old honor-killingvictim Morsal Obeidi outside a courthouse in Hamburg, Germany, on Dec. 16, 2008, as the

murder trial for Obeidis brother begins. The Afghan-born Ahmad Obeidi, 23, was accused ofstabbing his sister more than 20 times because she didnt live a strict Muslim life. He was

sentenced to life in prison. As the verdict was announced, the unrepentant defendantscreamed that if the trial had occur red in Afghanistan, he would have been released long ago.

The sign behind Shalkibayeva reads, Say no to power against woman live free.

Reuters/ChristianCharisius


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no


At Issue:Are Muslims being unfairly stigmatized in honor crime coverage?yes

yes

RANA HUSSEINIJORDANIAN JOURNALIST; AUTHOR,MURDER IN THE NAME OF HONOR

WRITTEN FOR CQ GLOBAL RESEARCHER, APRIL 2011

ever since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, theWestern media have become more biased in their cover-age of Arabs and Muslims, including in regard to howthey report on so-called honor killings.

A so-called honor crime occurs when the family of a

woman decides that she has tarnished their reputation and theonly way to eliminate this headache and shame is to kill her.I have conducted extensive research and readings and conclud-ed that these kinds of murders are not restricted to any coun-try, class or religion. They have been committed recently bymembers of the Muslim, Christian, Sikh and Yazidi faiths.

Violence against women including killing for adultery andillicit sexual activities has been the norm since ancient civi-lizations and later in the worlds three main religions: Judaism,Christianity and Islam. All three religions proposed punishmentsfor female [and male] adulterers and sinners. In the Dark Ages,

women were considered witches and were mostly punished orexecuted for having sex outside the marriage.

The punishment of women for immoral sexual activitiesin the West began decreasing after the Industrial Revolution,the creation of the pill, multiple wars and other factors. But

Western women still are being killed by their husbands, ex-spouses and boyfriends because of possessiveness, jealousy,suspicion and infidelity so-called crimes of passion.

Meanwhile, in the Muslim world, women are murdered forthose reasons and for reasons related to family honor. But thecrime is motivated by culture and patriarchal beliefs that

women are the property of their male guardians. Societies inthe Muslim world are still developing and progressing. Womenhave become more educated and more independent. This hascreated some clashes with male family members who expectcertain roles for females. That was once the case in the West,

and it will change eventually in the Muslim world.Meanwhile, the Western medias coverage of womens issuesand domestic violence has been biased toward Muslims. Forinstance, if the murderer is a Muslim, then he/she is immedi-ately labeled as Muslim. But we are never informed about thereligion of a murderer if he/she is Christian, Jewish, atheist, etc.

This labeling will only increase the hatred and fear of Mus-lims and will further increase intolerance toward religions andtraditions between the East and the West. The Western mediashould take a more objective and responsible approach whencovering such issues.no

PHYLLIS CHESLEREMERITAPROFESSOR OFPSYCHOLOGYANDWOMENSSTUDIES, RICHMONDCOLLEGE, CITYUNIVERSITY OFNEWYORK

WRITTEN FOR CQ GLOBAL RESEARCHER, APRIL 2011

h indu honor killings in India have been covered in themainstream American media, but Muslim honor killingsin the West such as in Arizona, Georgia, Illinois,Ohio, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Texas and Virginia have barely been covered. When they are, experts are quoted

insisting that the crime has nothing to do with Islam and thatevery group does it even though most honor killings in the

West are Muslim-on-Muslim crimes.Some Muslims say it is unfair for the media to identify a

wife- or daughter-murderer as a Muslim because the religionis not listed for all those arrested for domestic femicide. But

Western domestic violence and honor killings are not the sameAn honor killing is a conspiracy carried out by the victimsfamily, which views the killing as heroic. Daughter-stalking anddaughter-killing are not a Western cultural pattern, nor arethey valorized. In the West, wife- and daughter-killers are con-sidered criminals, not heroes; and wife-killers are not assistedby their parents or in-laws.

According to my 2009 and 2010 studies in Middle East

Quarterly, 58 percent of honor killing victims worldwide weremurdered for being too Western. Thus, an honor killing ispart of a war waged by one culture against another. The reli-gious and ideological fanaticism that drove Arab men to flyplanes into the World Trade Center is the same fanaticism thatdrove an Iraqi-American Muslim father to run over his daugh-ter with a two-ton jeep because she refused an arranged mar-riage and wore makeup and jeans.

True, nothing in Islam per se explicitly condones honorkillings. However, Muslim leaders have not preached againstthis crime, and Muslim-majority countries have rarely prose-cuted it.

Hindus, not Muslims, are being unfairly stigmatized by

media coverage of honor killings. While Hindus, Sikhs andMuslims do perpetrate honor murders in India, Hindu andSikh immigrants rarely practice the custom in the West. Andthe Hindu Indian government prosecutes it as a crime. IndiasMuslim neighbor, Pakistan, resists doing so.

Some fear that singling out only Muslims will stigmatizethem. This politically correct view is fashionable but alsodangerous because if we fail to understand this crime we willnever be able to prevent or to prosecute it.


20/26


sulted in some governments beingpushed, some shamed, into acting,explains the UNFPAs Toure.

Last November at a conference to cel-ebrate the International Day for the Elim-ination of Violence against Women, theKurdish Prime Minister Barham Salih con-demned honor killings and promised hisgovernment would work to end whathe called an embarrassing act and theresult of social backwardness and a pa-triarchal domination. 82 Activists hopehell keep his word. In 2008 the gov-ernment amended a law that now re-gards honor killing as murder. In the

past killers had been either let off or

given light sentences.In fact, one of the most high-profile

and horrific honor killings occurred inthe Kurdish region of Iraq in April2007, when an angry mob cheered as17-year-old Duaa Khalil Aswad wasstoned to death in the village of Bashiqa,with nearby security personnel watch-ing. Cell-phone videos of the murdercirculated on the Internet, showing the

teenager begging for mercy before aman smashed her skull with a cinderblock. Aswads male relatives mem-bers of the secretive Yazidi religious

sect are believed to have arrangedher death because she had dated aSunni boy. The Yazidi religion includeselements of Zoroastrianism, Judaism,Christianity and Islam and forbidsinterfaith relationships. 83

Four men (including some of Aswadsrelatives) were convicted and sen-tenced to die for the murder but werereleased from prison a year later. 84

The case exacerbated sectarian ten-sion, which was rampant at the time

in Iraq. Two weeks after the murder,

more than 20 Yazidis in nearby Mosulwere dragged from a bus and shot todeath, allegedly by Sunni gunmen inretribution for Aswads murder. 85

Last year a court in the northernIndia state of Haryana sentenced fivemen to death and one to life in prisonfor killing a young couple who mar-ried against the wishes of village el-ders. The capital sentences were the

first ever handed down in an honorkilling case. Womens-rights activists havehailed the decision, which is a signifi-cant break with tradition. An ugly nexus

between politicians, policemen and theseself-appointed guardians of tradition who tend to dominate elected locaassemblies as well as unelected casteones keeps most honour killingsout of court, noted The Economist. 86

Turkeys response to its grim newskyrocketing femicide statistics ad-mitting the problem and condemningit is also seen as a step forwardToo many governments have been re-luctant to even speak out about honorkillings, says Gill, of Londons Roe-

hampton University. Its a necessarystep to stopping this violence.

While Turkey recently strengthenedits punishment for honor killings toinclude life inprisonment, regardless ofthe age of the murderer, nearby Syriahas made what many see as a tokenchange in punishing such killers: Thetwo-year sentence was raised to be-tween five and seven years.

Activists have been pressuring theSyrian government to increase the

punishment for honor killers, somany saw it as a positive sign whena religious leader publicly condemnedsuch killings and even pushed forlonger sentences for those convictedof honor killings.

He who kills on claims of honouris a killer, and should be punished,said Grand Mufti of Syria Ahmen Badral-Din Hassoun. Islamic jurisprudencedoesnt allow people to live by theirown laws. 87

OUTLOOK

Needed: Three Ps

Jordanian journalist Husseini beganwriting about honor killings in 1993

HONORKILLINGS

Continued from p. 200

The group Stop Islamization of America uses a photo of slain Texas teenagers Amina andSarah Said in an anti-honor-killing advertising campaign in Chicago. The Lewisville, Texas,

sisters were found shot dead in their fathers abandoned cab in a parking lot nearDallas/Fort Worth International Airport on Jan. 1, 2008. Police believe their

Egyptian-born father, Yaser Abdel Said who has been missing since the murder killed the girls for refusing to accept his culture and religious beliefs .

Muslim groups say the murders had nothing to do with Islam.

PRNewsFoto/Sto

pIslamizationofAmerica


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Her investigations, newspaper articles,speeches and book have made her aninternational expert on the grim sub-ject. She has a perspective on what

she insists on calling so-called honorkillings that few others can rival. Yet,despite all the horrors that she hasseen and reported on over the lasttwo decades, she is an optimist.

I think we are making a lot ofprogress, she notes. Twenty yearsago no one wanted to talk about thissubject. It was denied, hushed up; itwas taboo. Today, however, the topicis being debated, and its featured inthe press, on television and even inmovies and plays. Its even being talked

about on Facebook.Like other womens-rights propo-

nents, Husseini sees the growing will-ingness to address the problem ofhonor killings as the first step in pre-vention and better prosecution. Thesecrimes are not going to end overnight;we have to raise awareness, changelaws, educate and empower women,convince religious and cultural lead-ers to condemn the murders, and more.But I see more and more people ex-

pressing willingness for better lawsand more protection for women. I thinkthere will be less and less of thesemurders as time goes on.

A recent honor killing prosecutionin the United Kingdom supports Hus-seinis opinion. In December 2009Mehmet Goren was convicted of mur-dering his 15-year-old daughter Tulaybecause he believed she had shamedhim. 88 But the conviction only hap-pened after Gorens wife came for-ward 10 years after the murder

to testify against her husband.She only broke her silence because

she was convinced she would be pro-tected, explains London-based womens-rights activist Nammi. A case like thisgives others in the community the courageto come forward and help put an endto these killings. Because of this, andother reasons, I think we will see lesshonor killings as time goes on.

As Husseini notes, There is still somuch that needs to be done to tackle thiscrime. These murders are just starting toreceive the attention they deserve. Many

believe that as more societies modern-ize, the less prone they will be to ac-cept honor killings. Experts stress theneed for the three Ps: prevention, pro-tection and prosecution. On their wishlists are such requirements as:

Improving the education andemancipation of women,

Raising legislative, law enforcementand public awareness,

Researching the causes and con-sequences of honor killings, and

Sheltering women threatened with

these crimes.The more seriously the world takes

honor killings, the less they will occur,says Gill, at Roehampton University.

Violence against women is a perva-sive problem across the globe. Honorkilling is only one of its many modes,but reforming [the concept of] honor isrelevant, I believe, to every form of gen-dered violence, noted Princetons Appi-ah. Every society needs to sustain codesin which assaulting a woman assault-

ing anyone in your own family is asource of dishonor, a cause of shame. 89

Pakistans activist Mai speaks formany womens-rights supporters whenshe adds, How important is this? Itsa matter of life and death.

Notes

1 Omar Waraich, Five women beaten and buried

alive in Pakistan honour killing, Sept. 2, 2008,

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/five-

women-beaten-and-buried-alive-in-pakistan-honour-killing-915714.html. See also Salman

Masood, Pakistan begins inquiry into deaths of

5 women, The New York Times, Sept. 3, 2008;

and Teens buried alive in honor killing, UPI.com,

Sept. 5, 2008, www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/

09/05/Teens-buried-alive-in-honor-killing/UPI-52

141220645085/#ixzz1JKFutCns.2 Ibid.3 Pa

Documents

Honor Killings - Can Murders of Women and Girls Be Stopped?