Abstract
Honor killing is an act of killing a member of the family, mostly women and girls with a core purpose of protecting and upholding the Islamic family reputation. This act is performed by an immediate male member of the family when their female family members have allegedly been involved in any disrespectful manner that is likely to ruin the family name. Some of the most case sensitive actions that result to killing a female member of the family include failure to adhere to the planned marriage, filing for a divorce or disrespecting a husband and involving themselves in extramarital activities before, during or after marriage.
The act of honor killing is highly practiced in Middle East which is mostly an Islamic dominated region. The cases of honor killing of women who have been involved in immoral activities in the community is highly reported in countries such as Palestine, Jordan and Pakistan where the act is part of Sharia law. In western countries however, although the act has been exercised, it is not publicly performed as seen in the Middle East. This is as a result of strict laws that brutally punish any involved person. Regardless of these laws, most perpetrators have escaped punishment as they conduct the honor killing in a way that it looks like suicide hence covering their own tracks. Such cases have been reported in Germany, Canada and America where the victims go missing only to be found dead in a mysterious way.
As a way of reducing the increasing cases of honor killing, most human rights movements have emphasized on global education on the value of life and insisted on formation of strict laws that punish those found guilty of killing an innocent woman. Despite these laws, the act of honor killing is still practiced in most Middle East countries as they believe that it is culturally and spiritually legal to protect the honor of the family through getting rid of any person likely to tint the family name.
Introduction
Honor killing is an act of killing female family members who may have committed an unlawful act that may bring shame to the family. The act of honor killing is exercised by the immediate male member of the family including the father or a brother of the female member who has violated one of the several moral obligations that may result in a tinted family reputation. Such acts that has resulted in killing of women and young girls that are associated with a negative image to the family includes inappropriate dressing by failure to wear the hijab or wearing it in an inappropriate manner, failure to honor an arranged marriage, filing for a divorce or engaging in extramarital affairs. According to the Islamic beliefs, a family reputation is a vital factor that family members especially the male counterparts who are the heads of the families ought to honor and protect at all means even if it means killing the female members of the family who are likely to bring shame to the family. Therefore, as a way of preserving and upholding the reputation of the family against unscrupulous behavior of the women in the family, the act of honor killing has been accepted and practiced by several families in the world and the act constitutes to over five thousands women going missing annually without a concrete police report.
Background information
According to the Muslim family beliefs, a family is a constituent part of a society and as such, a there is a long term coexistence in one place for a long period of time. This will mean that if any member of a particular society of a village is asked about the history of a particular family, they can easily narrate it since the history is passed from one generation to the next. This means that the family history has to be kept as clean and reputable as possible since a tinted image caused by a female to a family over a long time ago will still be recounted even in the future hence ruining the image and reputation of the family’s future generations. If a woman’s reputation is put in question, even if for instance she is rumored of being raped or seen talking public to a man, she is ought to be killed so as to delete such a tinted reputation.
As a way of retaining a clean family reputation, most families have even been praised for performing the act of honor killing to those female members in their families who could have ruined the family’s or the society’s good image. As a way of legalizing the act which is not a crime according to the Islamic believes, most countries especially in middle east have included the act of honor killing in the Sharia Law and mostly, young men are encouraged to kill their sisters or female family members who do not comply with the moral obligations as a way of gaining experience of safeguarding their family reputation in the future.
One of the main contributions to the rise in murder killing even from the ancient Islamic practices is failure to honor marriages as it is a cultural and legal duty for the Islamic women to honor. The rule of marriage according to Muslim cultural practice is a family business and not a woman’s decision to make. This means that a family chooses who a female member of the family should marry and the involved female should comply and honor this decision without any questions or objection. Fleeing from an arranged marriage or seeking divorce after been forcefully married to someone they do not desire, women are mostly exposed to victimization of honor killing as a way of upholding the family and cultural practices. All forms of behaviors that results in dishonoring the value of marriage in a family which includes talking to another man in public, filing a complaint of violence or involving in any form of extramarital affair with another woman are punishable by eliminating the involved woman from the family through killing her in a least susceptive way which in most case has been termed as a suicide act.
According to the Islamic archives on the origin of honor killing of women in the families, ancient families are believed to have buried young girls alive as a way of eliminating any potential females in the family who are likely to cause a bad image to the family in the future. These according to Islamic believes grew up to defy on the Islamic marriage teachings and as a way of reducing the burden of killing them when they are already grown up, infants and young girls honor killing was much better and the act was mostly performed by the older brothers or immediate teenagers in the family. Immorality is a major cause of a tinted image of a woman and according t the teachings, an immoral woman is like a decaying item that must be gotten rid of as early as possible though the act of honor killing.
Being a family business to protect, uphold and safeguard the reputation and the family name, it means that the act of eliminating any form of a tinted image is the duty of the whole family. Hence in the process of conducting the honor killing is performed by a perpetrator who is an immediate family member either a brother, father or even son. The process of eliminating the shame may be arranged by the family members or decided just by the perpetrator who feels that the victim may bring shame to the family (Hillary, 2002). For instance a teenager reportedly decided to kill his divorced mother after he heard rumors that she was involved in extramarital activities. To him, this was like adding a wound on top of another as the family name was already ruined by the woman being divorced (BBC news, 2009). Also the victim can be killed by a group of men who are also family members after following her for several days prior to the decision that she is a threat to the family image. Some perpetrators have been reported to follow their sisters or daughters who have to be killed, gang rape them and then kill and bury them in place where they will never be found. This act is most traumatizing to the victims who have to be killed that some of them have been reported to expose themselves to be killed instead of hiding and get traumatized. The act of exposing themselves to the penetrators is less painful according to some of the victims because no matter how far or long they run away, some day they will end up being killed.
Honor killing in Middle East
Honor killing is a widely practiced phenomenon in the Middle East mainly because many countries in the region practice sharia law. Women are considered commodities that are owned by men and they are not in any way equal to men. Male family members are charged with the responsibility of killing their female relatives if the suspect that they might bring shame to the family. In Middle East countries, a woman is killed for being suspected of having a sexual relationship and engaging in premarital sex (Hillary, 2002). They don’t have to be caught in the act. Suspecting alone or even rumors are enough reasons to make a relative to kill a woman all in the name of protecting the family’s reputation. The name of the family is considered very important and people who practice this heinous act argue that it means a lot to them and should not be tainted by irresponsible female relatives (Brandon & Hafez, 2008). Male friends who protect the reputation of their families by killing immoral women are praised and treated as heroes. This makes it easier for other men to continue with the trend in order to be termed as heroes too. This has led to the killing of innocent women as a result of rumors and false allegations by malicious relatives as well as friends. In some cases women who refuse advances from men are accused of being immoral by the same men.
The practice is very rampant in poor rural areas in Middle East countries due to the wide use of sharia laws which are in some cases included in the federal laws. The community leaders support the practice and this makes it difficult for victims to get justice. Family members also protect the perpetrators of this act. For instance, if a man kills his cousin, the victim’s parents end up supporting the murderer as opposed to the victim who is their daughter. This prevents justice from taking its course and therefore, promotes the practice of honor killing. Ridicule by neighbors and other members of the community is the other factor that promotes the increase of honor killing in the Middle East. Elder male relatives who fail to kill their misbehaving relatives are ridiculed by neighbors and family members and end up killing to save their face. The practice has become very common even among women as a result of male dominance in the society. Men are very powerful in the Arab community and even young boys are termed valuable than even their mothers. Women have taken part in honor killings directly or by setting up their daughters or sisters.
Honor killing in Jordan is supported by even the law makers and the courts. Victims charged with murder get a relatively less sentence if it is discovered that the killing was related to family honor. All a murder victim has to do is prove to the court that he killed to protect the reputation of the family (Brandon & Hafez, 2008). The irony in this is that the law in Jordan prohibits murder and premeditated murder attracts a death sentence. However, men who kill their sisters, cousins, mothers and aunts who are caught or thought to practice adultery are set free by the same courts or given much short sentence. Recently the government in Jordan introduced a law that ensured that honor killing perpetrators are treated like any other murder victim but the parliament in the country shot it down. They argued that adopting the law would promote adultery and other sexual acts that are prohibited by the sharia law. The practice of both sharia law and strong customary beliefs has for long been the challenge of stopping the practice of honor killing. For instance, the members of parliament who rejected the law about stopping the practice did so to protect themselves from being rejected by the people who elected them. This shows how culture, beliefs and customs affect the practice of law in the country.
In Palestine honor killings are commonly practiced although not openly like in Jordan. This is because the Palestinian government recently amended the law and treats honor related cases like any other murder crimes. However this does not bar people from practicing the crime as this law has only been applied in Judea and Samaria. In the Hamas led Gaza region the law is not recognized and therefore cases of honor killings are common. This is termed by human rights crusaders as undermining of the country’s law and calls have been made by various bodies to end the leniency in judging perpetrators of crime against women. Hamas has been pressured to treat all killings as murder without recognizing honor killing because doing so is basically applying double standards on the law. For instance, a man killed a female relative who was admitted in a hospital in Gaza after poisoning. The hospital claimed that the victim had committed suicide and when the man arrived he shot the woman on the head. He later handed himself to the police and when he was taken to court he out rightly said that he committed the act to protect the honor of the family. The fact that the suspect handed himself to the police shows that he had no regard to the law and was sure that the court would treat the case with leniency as is the case in the region.
As a result of immigration especially from the Islamic countries, practices commonly related to sharia law are quickly spilling in the western countries. Cases of honor related killings have been reported in western countries like Germany, United States of America as well as United Kingdom. Despite strong oppositions by human rights activists and religious leader from other religions who oppose the practice as they term it a merciless killing, honor killings have been reported in western countries whereby women from Middle East origin have mysteriously vanished with no prior trace (Feldner, 2000). These vanishing cases were reported to increase between the year 1989 to 2001 where families of rebelled women and girls placed adverts of a missing person and once the person who allegedly is the impure woman is found, they went missing without trace as they ended up being killed to preserve the family honor.
As a result of the strict legal punishments that entail any individual or a group of perpetrators found guilty of killing an innocent woman in the name of honor killing, the families involved have been reported to use other female members of the family to lure the girls into coming back home where they are subsequently murdered. Most of the Western countries have passed harsh judgments on family members who allegedly killed women to protect the honor of their family. For instance in Canada, the government has enacted criminal laws punishing any individual whether foreign or local person who practice the barbaric act of murder in the name of a cultural requirement. The Danish curt also sentenced nine members of the family for killing the famous teenager Ghazala Khan in 2006 while similar sentences have been passed to various criminals in Germany, United Kingdom and Canada.
Honor killing controversies
The act of killing a woman with an aim of obtaining a reputable living has received negative criticisms from various human rights and gender based activists as a violation of human rights. This is because at some point, it is unethical to kill someone on a basis of immoral acts and inappropriate behavior. The increased rate of women and young girls killings have resulted in formation of women movements aimed at bringing to end this barbaric act and at the same time lobby for the respect of the rights of women as they are human beings just like their male counterparts.
As a way of putting to end to this act, human rights activists have pleaded with governments and law makers, religious leaders, and education institutions worldwide to enhance teachings on the rule of law that protects the life of a person regardless of the gender or their shortcomings (Goonesekere, 2004). Shelters for the young battered women have also been erected so as to provide a shelter for the victims who successfully run away from their families.
The rate of honor killing has reduced to some extent in some of the global countries especially Western countries as compared to the Middle East countries where the act is still practiced as a way of upholding reputation. Through enacting strict laws and educating the male family members who feel that a family reputation can only be attained through performing a honor killing is said to reduce the male-female conflicts that have existed in most Islamic and Hindu dominated places and hence at some point reduce the alarming rate of honor killing which is a crime against humanity.
References
1. BBC News. (May, 2012). Shafilea Ahmed victim of honor killing. Retrieved from www.bbc.com
2. Brandon, James & Hafez, Salam. (2008) Crimes of the Community: Honor-based Violence in the UK. London: Centre for Social Cohesion, 2008, pp. 136-40.
3. Chesler, Phyllis. (2009). Are Honor Killings Simply Domestic Violence? Middle East Quarterly.
4. Emery, James (2003). Reputation is Everything: Honor killing among the Palestinians. Retrieved from www.worldandi.com
5. Feldner, Yotam. (2000). Honor’ Murders–Why the Perpetrators Get off Easy. Middle East Quarterly.
6. Goonesekere, Savitri (2004). Violence, Law and Women's Rights in South Asia. SAGE Publications.
7. Hillary, Mayell (2002). Thousands of Women Killed for Family “Honor”. National Geographic News.
8. Masood, Salman (2004). Pakistan Tries to Curb 'Honor Killings' . New York Times.
9. Stacey, Aisha. (Oct. 5, 2006). Why Muslim Women Wear the Veil. BBC News.
10. Wikan, Unni. (2002). Generous Betrayal: Politics of Culture in the New Europe. University of Chicago Press.
11. Yavuz, Ercan. (August, 2020). Honor killings a misunderstood concept, study finds. Today's Zaman.
