Honor killing

An honor killing or honour killing is generally the murder of a female member of a family by the family, when they (and maybe the wider community) believe her to have brought dishonor upon them. A woman can be targeted commonly for: refusing an arranged marriage, being the victim of a sexual assault, seeking a divorce—even from an abusive husband—or committing adultery or fornication. These killings result from the perception that defense of the "family honor" justifies killing a woman whose behavior "dishonors" her family.

The killing of a (possibly adulterous) wife by an enraged husband or the killing of a male by the family of (a supposedly dishonored) female is or was common and often condoned in many cultures (e.g. manslaughter). Such a cultural attitude was often reflected in a reduced sentence for such a murder by the judicial system. However the killing of females by their own family members is rare except in tribal cultures of the Middle East and South Asia. Honor killing of female family members is not tied to religion; it occurs among some rural Muslim communities with a strongly feudal tribal culture, among Druze and Christian tribes in some Arab countries and Pakistan, as well as among other South Asian communities, including Hindu and Sikh adherents in India, the United States, United Kingdom and Canada. However, it is much rarer or non-existent in the Muslim communities of most of Central Asia (including Kazakhstan and Kyrghyzstan), Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, sub-Saharan Africa, Malaysia and Indonesia, due to its cultural roots.

The United Nations Population Fund estimates that the annual worldwide total of honor-killing victims may be as high as 5,000 women.

Definitions

Human Rights Watch defines "honor killings" as follows:

Honor crimes are acts of violence, usually murder, committed by male family members against female family members, who are held to have brought dishonor upon the family. A woman can be targeted by (individuals within) her family for a variety of reasons, including: refusing to enter into an arranged marriage, being the victim of a sexual assault, seeking a divorce—even from an abusive husband—or (allegedly) committing adultery. The mere perception that a woman has behaved in a way that "dishonors" her family is sufficient to trigger an attack on her life.

However, it should be noted that the term honor killing applies to killing of both males and females in cultures that practice it. For example, during the year 2002 in Pakistan, it is estimated that 245 women and 137 men were killed in the name of Karo-Kari in Sindh. These killings target women and men who choose to have relationships outside of their family's tribal affiliation and/or religious community.

Some women who bridge social divides, publicly engage other communities, or adopt some of the customs or the religion of an outside group may thus also be attacked. In countries that receive immigration, some otherwise low-status immigrant men and boys have asserted their dominant patriarchal status by inflicting honor killings on women family members who have participated in public life, for example in feminist and integration politics. Women in the family can support the honor killing of one of their own, when they agree that the family is the property and asset of men and boys. Alternatively, matriarchs may be motivated not by personal belief in the misogynistic ideology of women as property, but rather by tragically pragmatic calculations. Sometimes a mother may support an honor killing of an "offending" female family member in order to preserve the honor of other female family members since many men in these societies will refuse to marry the sister of a "shamed" female whom the family has not chosen to punish, thereby "purifying" the family name by murdering the suspected female.

There is some evidence that homosexuality can also be perceived as grounds for honor killing by relatives. Several cases have been suspected but not confirmed. There is a documented case of a gay Jordanian man who was shot and wounded by his brother.

Honor suicides

Main article: Forced suicide

Honor suicides occur when people order or pressure a woman to kill herself; this may be done so that the people avoid penalties for murdering her. This phenomenon appears to be a relatively recent development. A special envoy for the United Nations named Yakin Erturk, who was sent to Turkey to investigate suspicious suicides amongst Kurdish girls, was quoted by The New York Times as saying that some suicides appeared in Kurdish-inhabited regions of Turkey to be "honor killings disguised as a suicide or an accident."

Locations

As of 2004, honor killings have occurred within parts of various countries, such as Albania, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Ecuador, Germany, India, Iraq, Israel (within the Arab, Druze and Bedouin communities), Italy, Pakistan, Punjab, the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Uganda, United Kingdom and the United States.. In some of these countries, such as the UK, honor killings occur only among non-indigenous groups.

According to the UN:

"The report of the Special Rapporteur ... concerning cultural practices in the family that are violent towards women (E/CN.4/2002/83), indicated that honor killings had been reported in Egypt, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Punjab, the Syrian Arab Republic, Turkey, Yemen, and other Mediterranean and Persian Gulf countries, and that they had also taken place in such countries as France, Germany and the United Kingdom, within migrant communities."

File:Murdered woman.jpg

In 1995, Ibtihaz Hasoun married a man outside her Arab village in Israel. Her brother accused her of shaming her family, and stabbed her to death. He summoned villagers to watch him murder his "fallen sister." The villagers celebrated the honor killing.

Honor killings are more common among poor rural communities than urban ones. While violence and discrimination against women is widespread across the globe, it is well established that social inequality is a participatory factor. There is a strong positive correlation between women's social power and a baseline of development, associated with access to basic resources, health care, and human capital, such as literacy. In some locations, attacks or killings have been perpetrated against women by individuals who are not close relatives, often in the context of enforcement of religiously-sanctioned social requirements such as wearing hijab or engaging in more open interaction with unrelated males. One example is the current trend in the Iraqi city of Basra, where authorities report that around 15 female corpses are discovered monthly; the victims are believed to have been killed by groups who seek to enforce sanctioned behavior on women.

UNICEF has reported that in India, more than 5,000 brides are killed annually because their marriage dowries are considered insufficient. Widney Brown, advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, says that these killings are similar to the killings in countries where Islam is practiced, because they have a similar dynamic in that the women are killed by male family members and the crimes are perceived as excusable or understandable.

Every year in the UK, about 13 women are victims of honor killing, occurring exclusively to date within Asian and Middle Eastern families and often cases are unresolved due to the unwillingness of family, relatives and communities to testify. A 2006 BBC poll for the Asian network in the UK found that 1 in 10 of the 500 young Asians polled said that they could condone the murder of someone who supposedly dishonored their family. In the UK, in December 2005, Nazir Afzal, Director, West London, of Britain's Crown Prosecution Service, stated that the United Kingdom has seen "at least a dozen honor killings" between 2004 and 2005. Given the geopolitical politics dominant today, the practice of honor killing is associated in the West with certain Muslim cultures and the peoples influenced by those cultures..

While precise figures do not exist for the perpetrators' cultural backgrounds, Diana Nammi of the UK's Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation is reported to have said:

"about two-thirds are Muslim. Yet they can also be Hindu, Sikh and even eastern European."

Pakistan: Many cases of honor killings have been reported here. During the year 2002 about four hundred people (men & women) were killed in the name of (Karo-Kari) in Sindh Out of 382 (245 women, 137 men). The phenomenon of the killing in the name of honor has direct relevance to the illiteracy rate, as these killings are more common in the areas where the literacy rate is lower. According to a report issued by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), Jacobabad District ranked first in terms of murder in the name of Karo Kari (66 women, 25 men). Jacobabad district has a literacy rate of 23.66, the least literate district of Sindh after Tharparkar District, and Thatta District. After Jacobabad, the Ghotki District witnessed the highest number of murders in the name of Karo Kari (13 men, 54 women). After Ghotki, Larkana is the district with the next highest murder rate in the name of Karo Kari (24 men, 38 women). Larkana as well, has a low literacy rate of 34.95. This is lower than even Naushahro Feroze District, Dadu District, and Khairpur District, having 39.14, 35.56 and 35.50 percent literacy rates respectively. These districts of the upper Sindh have low literacy rates but high feudal influence in every walk of life. Jacobabad, Ghotki and Larkana are those districts of Sindh where not only the illiterate, but tribal chieftains are also present in large numbers. According to a report released by the HRCP, the cases of Karo Kari are mostly settled at jirgas, the private and parallel judicial system of Chieftains. However, districts of lower parts of Sindh like Tharparkar, Badin, and Thatta experience nominal occurrences of honor killings because they have a lower amount of feudal influence there.

Saudi Arabia: In April 2008 it came to light that some months prior, a woman was killed by her father for chatting on Facebook to a man. The murder only came to light, when a Saudi Cleric referred to the case in his attempt to the 'strife' that the website 'causes'. And a July 2008 report from the Center for Religious Freedom of the Hudson Institute: surveys school text books in Saudi, and shows that they continue to place violent messages to children: teaching that it is permissible for a Muslim to kill an "adulterer", and that tenth grade text now posted on the Saudi Ministry's website sanctions the killing of homosexuals and discusses methods for doing so.

Turkey: A June 2008 Report by the Prime Ministry's Human Rights Directorate, says that in Istanbul alone, there is one honor killing every week; and reports over 1,000 during the last 5 years. It adds that metropolitan cities are the location of much them.

Palestine: UNICEF reported in 2000:

"According to 1999 estimates, more than two-thirds of all murders in Gaza strip and West bank were most likely 'honour' killings."

Honor killing as a cultural or religious practice

Sharif Kanaana, professor of anthropology at Birzeit University states that honor killing is:

A complicated issue that cuts deep into the history of Arab society. .. What the men of the family, clan, or tribe seek control of in a patrilineal society is reproductive power. Women for the tribe were considered a factory for making men. The honor killing is not a means to control sexual power or behavior. What's behind it is the issue of fertility, or reproductive power.

An Amnesty International statement adds:

The regime of honor is unforgiving: women on whom suspicion has fallen are not given an opportunity to defend themselves, and family members have no socially acceptable alternative but to remove the stain on their honor by attacking the woman.

Hina Jilani, lawyer and human rights activist

The right to life of women in Pakistan is conditional on their obeying social norms and traditions.

A July 2008 Turkish study by a team from Dicle University on honor killings in the Southeastern Anatolia Region has so far shown that little if any social stigma is attached to the act.

In terms of religious support for the act: the Christian New Testament recounts Jesus preventing the stoning of a women caught in adultery, by saying 'let him who is without sin cast the first stone'. There are no verses supporting honour killings or other punishment of women; and hence there are no bible-based Christian traditions supporting it.

The Muslim Qu'ran and Hadith however have a number of verses allowing the punishment of wives such as imprisonment in Sura 4:15 "If any of your women are guilty of lewdness, Take the evidence of four (Reliable) witnesses from amongst you against them; and if they testify, confine them to houses until death do claim them, or Allah ordain for them some (other) way.".

And while the Qu'ran does not cover stoning as a punishment for stoning, the Hadith quotes Mohammed using the punishment:

The Jews came to Allah's Apostle and told him that a man and a woman from amongst them had committed illegal sexual intercourse....The Prophet then gave the order that both of them should be stoned to death.

Muslim majority countries

Most Islamic religious authorities prohibit extra-legal punishments such as honor killings, since they consider the practice to be a cultural issue, although recognising that adultery by a married person is one of the three permitted grounds for a Muslim's life to be taken.

According to Amnesty International, in Iraq, honor killings are also conducted by armed groups, and not the government, upon politically active women and those who did not follow a strict dress code, and women who are perceived as human rights defenders.

Honor killing in national legal codes

According to the report of the Special Rapporteur submitted to the 58th session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (2002) concerning cultural practices in the family that reflect violence against women (E/CN.4/2002/83):

The Special Rapporteur indicated that there had been contradictory decisions with regard to the honor defense in Brazil, and that legislative provisions allowing for partial or complete defense in that context could be found in the penal codes of Argentina, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Peru, Syria, Venezuela and the Palestinian National Authority.

The Israeli government denies that its law allows for "family honor" as a defense in murder, partially or completely.

Countries where the law is interpreted to allow men to kill female relatives in a premeditated effort as well as for crimes of passions, in flagrante delicto in the act of committing adultery, include:

• Jordan: Part of article 340 of the Penal Code states that "he who discovers his wife or one of his female relatives committing adultery and kills, wounds, or injures one of them, is exempted from any penalty." This has twice been put forward for cancellation by the government, but was retained by the Lower House of the Parliament, in 2003: a year in which at least seven honor killings took place.

Countries that allow men to kill female relatives in flagrante delicto (but without premeditation) include:

• Syria: Article 548 states that "He who catches his wife or one of his ascendants, descendants or sister committing adultery (flagrante delicto) or illegitimate sexual acts with another and he killed or injured one or both of them benefits from an exemption of penalty."

Countries that allow husbands to kill only their wives in flagrante delicto (based upon the Napoleonic code) include:

• Morocco: Article 418 of the Penal Code states "Murder, injury and beating are excusable if they are committed by a husband on his wife as well as the accomplice at the moment in which he surprises them in the act of adultery."

• Haiti: Article 269 of the Penal Code states that "in the case of adultery as provided for in Article 284, the murder by a husband of his wife and/or her partner, immediately upon discovering them in flagrante delicto in the conjugal abode, is to be pardoned."

• In two Latin American countries, similar laws were struck down over the past two decades: according to human rights lawyer Julie Mertus "in Brazil, until 1991 wife killings were considered to be noncriminal 'honor killings'; in just one year, nearly eight hundred husbands killed their wives. Similarly, in Colombia, until 1980, a husband legally could kill his wife for committing adultery."

Countries where honor killing is not legal but is known to occur include:

• Turkey: In Turkey, persons found guilty of this crime are sentenced to life in prison.

• Iraqi Kurdistan: In Kurdistan, women are killed nearly every day for 'dishonoring' their families.[reference needed] Honor killing was legal until 2002 in Iraq.[reference needed]

• Pakistan: Honor killings are known as Karo Kari (Sindhi: ڪارو ڪاري) (Urdu: کاروکاری ). The practice is supposed to be prosecuted under ordinary murder, but in practice police and prosecutors often ignore it. Often a man must simply claim the killing was for his honor and he will go free. Nilofar Bakhtiar, advisor to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, stated that in 2003, as many as 1,261 women were murdered in honor killings. On December 8, 2004, under international and domestic pressure, Pakistan enacted a law that made honor killings punishable by a prison term of seven years, or by the death penalty in the most extreme cases. Women's rights organizations were, however, wary of this law as it stops short of outlawing the practice of allowing killers to buy their freedom by paying compensation to the victim's relatives. Women's rights groups claimed that in most cases it is the victim's immediate relatives who are the killers, so inherently the new law is just eyewash. It did not alter the provisions whereby the accused could negotiate pardon with the victim's family under the so-called Islamic provisions. In March 2005 the Pakistani government allied with Islamists to reject a bill which sought to strengthen the law against the practice of "honor killing". However, the bill was brought up again, and in November 2006, it passed. It is doubtful whether or not the law would actually help women.

• Egypt: A number of studies on honor crimes by The Centre of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law, at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, includes one which reports on Egypt's legal system, noting a gender bias in favor of men in general, and notably article 17 of the Penal Code : judicial discretion to allow reduced punishment in certain circumstance, often used in honor killings case.

See also

• Acid attack
• Blood money
• Crime of passion
• Extramarital sex
• Female genital cutting
• Feud
• Gendercide
• Kanun
• Machismo
• Namus
• Sati
• Vani
• Vitriolage
• Watta satta

Victims

• Du’a Khalil Aswad
• Anooshe Sediq Ghulam
• Leila Hussein and her daughter Rand Abdel-Qader
• Tina Isa
• Ghazala Khan
• Samaira Nazir
• Aqsa Parvez
• Fadime Sahindal
• Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu
• Hatun Sürücü
• Arash Ghorbani-Zarin
• Sandeela Kanwal

Further reading

• Ayse Onal. "Honour Killing: Stories of Men Who Killed" Saqi. May 2008 256pp.
• Tintori, Karen, "Unto the Daughters: The Legacy of an Honor Killing in a Sicilian-American Family," St. Martin's Press, July 2007, 240 pp.
• Ellen R. Sheeley. Reclaiming Honor in Jordan. March 2007, 133 pages.
• Mojab, Shahrzad and Amir Hassanpour. 2001. "In Memory of Fadime Sahindal: Thoughts on the Struggle Against 'Honor Killing'." Kurdish Library. http://www.kurdishlibrary.org/Kurdish_Library/Aktuel/Fadime_Sahindal/Articel_Hassanpour_Fadime01.htm
• Wikan, Unni. 2002. Generous Betrayal: Politics of Culture in the New Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• "Jordan Parliament Supports Impunity for Honor Killing", Washington, D.C.: Human Rights Watch news release, January 2000
• Burned Alive: A Victim of the Law of Men Alleged first-person account of Souad, a victim of an attempted honor killing (ISBN 0-446-53346-7) — The work is based on a repressed memory report and its authenticity has been questioned.
• A Matter of Honor, Your Honor?, Wiesbaden, Germany: World Politics Watch News Feature, September 2006

External links

• Iran Human Rights

Included in article

• Frequently Asked Questions About Honour Killings
• Honor killings in Pakistan
• Articles and Opinions: American Muslims need to speak out against violations of Islamic Shariah law {Asma Society}
• Commodifying Honor in Female Sexuality: Honor Killings in Palestine – Suzanne Ruggi (Middle East Report)
• For Shame: A Special Report - Arab Honor's Price: A Woman's Blood
• 'Honour' Crimes Project – including a thorough bibliography (School of Oriental and African Studies)
• International Campaign Against Honor Killings
• Islamic ruling on "Honor killings" – Mohammed Fadel PhD, JD
• Killing for Honor: Legalized Murder (Amnesty International USA)
• Reputation is Everything: Honor Killing among the Palestinians – World and I magazine, March 2003
• Social Determinants of Attitudes Towards Women's Premarital Sexuality Among Female Turkish University Students
• The Biological Roots of Heat-of-Passion Crimes and Honor Killings
• The Feminist Sexual Ethics Project - Honor Killings, Illicit Sex and Islamic Law
• Translations of the Qur'an, Chapter 24: Verses 1-26 – USC-MSA Compendium of Muslim Texts
• Truth, History, and Honor Killing – Thérèse Taylor (Antiwar.com)
• Template:PDFlink (2002)
• United Nation High Commissioner for Human Rights (April 2000)

Not included in article

• Honor Killing from an Islamic Perspective site that states that the Koran repudiates Honor Killing.
• International Campaign Against Honor Killings, contains an extensive archive of news reports and photos of victims
• Template:PDFlink (United Nations Development Programme) that summarizes and evaluates qualitative research about so-called 'honor killings'.
• "(Ramla Journal) Defying a Clan Code of Silence on Unspeakable Crimes." New York Times. Kershner, Isabel. April 20, 2007. (Accessed April 20, 2007.)
• "Video Surfaces Showing Kurdish Girl Stoned to Death for Relationship With Iraqi Sunni Boy." Fox News. May 4, 2007. (Accessed May 7, 2007).
• "(Phenomenon) A Dishonorable Affair". Zoepf, Katherine. New York Times Magazine. September 23, 2007. (Accessed September 25, 2007).
• Honor killings are a family affair - The Murder of Tina Isa
• Ellen Harris, author, "Guarding the Secrets: Palestinian Terrorism and a Father's Murder of His Too-American Daughter."