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A crime in the name of HonorWho judges who?
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Fadi Aho
Last month the Swedish capital Stockholm hosted an international conference on honor crimes, which aimed to strengthen the laws against these crimes. In its closing session, the conference called for the causes of violence in patriarchal societies to be dealt with.
The closing statement said that educating women, giving them power and spreading awareness of women’s issues among men are the critical steps that can be taken to eliminate these crimes.
The participants in the conference called for changes to be made in the legal system in countries where these crimes take place, as well as changes in employment practices, the education system and a public education campaign to raise awareness of sexual health issues. The conference also called for international cooperation to treat violence in patriarchal societies through organizations like the United Nations, Interpol and the European Union.
“Honor crime” is a name used for crimes that involve the killing of women or girls after they are accused, mostly by their families, of sexual impropriety. This may happen because of nothing more than doubts about their daughter’s behaviour -- she may have been seen in the company of a young man walking on the street. This happened to an Egyptian girl whose brother saw her in the company of a young man on the Nile Corniche. He attacked her, cut her head off and carried it back to her neighborhood to the cries of joy of her mother.
This incident, and many others around the world, estimated to number around 5,000 [a year], show how women are thought of as goods that can be spoiled and pose the question: What can change the conditions and social attitudes that make women a prisoner in their own house? How can these women become fully active and empowered members of society, at work and at home, and mix freely with men who regard her as a being fully responsible for her own behaviour, not in need of a chaperone? In a world of rapid change, a world that is rapidly opening up, with increasing freedom whether state and religious authorities want it or not, how long will tribal honor limit women’s lives and protect their virginity, as happens in Arabic and Muslim societies around the world?
In Pakistan 372 honor crimes were committed in 2003. This number rose 25 percent in 2004, to 461 separate crimes. Only a small number of those who committed the crimes, mostly brothers and fathers killing sisters and daughters, were arrested.
In Jordan, the girls who are able to escape from death are imprisoned to “protect their lives” while their would-be killer remains free. There are on average 25 of these cases every year.
This leads to a question: What is this lethal honor? Where is the honor in killing a living creature? Why is there no legislation to prevent this?
In Islam, the Quran stipulates that four witnesses are required before a woman can be punished for the crime of fornication, a condition very difficult, if not impossible, to meet, or require a confession. The Quran and religious law are moral obstacles, not more. Custom and tradition and distorted ideas are the main reasons for honor crimes.
Civil consciousness and a new awareness of sexuality can play a decisive role in limiting these crimes. Many nationalists and conservative Islamists complain about women’s organizations on the grounds that they exaggerate these matters to encourage foreign intervention, and say that crimes agaisnt women happen in Western societies. This is true, but violence against women in the West has social and psychological causes connected to jealousy, manhood, and the desire to subjugate women, and has no connection with customs, tradition or “shame.” This word is almost extinct in the West. Most importantly, no law protects perpetrators of these crimes in the West and justifies their actions on the basis of tribal law, custom or an honor that must be cleaned of shame.
This poses several important questions: How do women see their honor? Who formulated the concept of honor in its present form?
Today, the law and the judiciary are seen as being primarily responsible for the fact that families continue to kill their daughters. The perpetrators of these crimes will get six months or a year in prison, and often come home as heroes to their family or tribe. Increasing the penalty and not allowing the killer to justify his actions would be a strong deterrent to “the heroes,” who would think carefully before they committed their crime. Of course this measure would not be enough without a public education campaign and a new cultural perspective on honor crimes. This is the role of the media.
The name of the crime is also problematic. The connection between the two words, “honor” and “crime” has a powerful effect on the subconscious. It makes the crime moral and projects a form of legitimacy onto it, by virtue of the concept of “honor” and all the respect and decency it implies.
Especially in the Arabic world, the media carry a large part of the responsibility for failing to stir up a stronger reaction to these crimes and examine their causes thoroughly. Even when it has done so, it has used the term “honor crime” without trying to find an appropriate substitute or explanation, or finding a new, more acceptable definition of honor. Any media organization that respects itself must do this; it should not be left to the populism of politicians and the preaching of religious conservatives, who fill the world with backward, extremist ideas on the pretence that they are protecting tradition and values. |
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