Honor killing

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Honor killing is the practice of a family member killing a female relative when a relative considers her to have brought "dishonour" to the family, often through unsanctioned sexual activity—often including cases when a woman is raped. Societies and cultures where it is practiced often regard the killing (or "execution") of the female relative to be a private matter for the affected family alone; rarely do non-family members or the courts become involved or prosecute the perpetrators. The United Nations Population Fund estimates that the annual worldwide total of honor killings may be as high as 5,000 women. As of recently, there are harsher punishments for honor killings in many countries like Turkey.

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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 perceived to have brought dishonor upon the family. A woman can be targeted by 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 committing adultery. The mere perception that a woman has acted in a manner to bring "dishonor" to the family is sufficient to trigger an attack. [1]

Honor killings can also target those who choose as boyfriends/lovers or spouses members of another religious or ethnic group other than the family's own. Women who adopt the customs (or religion) of an outside group may also be more likely to be victims. [2].

Many critics hold that the practice is self-contradictory: honor killing is justified by participants or supporters as an attempt to uphold the morals of a religion or a code which, at the same time, generally forbids killing as morally wrong (see below concerning Islamic countries).

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History

Similar practices have been known since ancient Roman times, when the pater familias, or senior male within a household, retained the right to kill an unmarried but sexually active daughter or an adulterous wife. Europe has been familiar with the practice since ancient empires under Christian law in which crimes such as adultery, were punished often with stoning. Jewish law punishes certain sexual misconduct, for both men and women, with capital punishment, as approved by a court (or Sanhedrin). The Sanhedrin's requirements for burden of proof, however, are so strict that this punishment was never meted out, and certainly never sanctioned outside of the court. Such practices have long since ceased to be endemic in North America, although immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East have brought the practice with them in recent decades.

Honor killings, generally considered premeditated, are typically held to be distinct from Crimes of passion, which occur throughout the world. Crimes of passion often have special status under the law. For instance, until 1975, the French Penal Code commuted the sentence of a husband who killed his wife after finding her in the act of committing adultery [3]; this law passed into the legal frameworks of the many nations who based their modern legal codes on the Napoleonic Code. However, crimes of passion are limited in scope and are different from premeditated crimes against an adulterous spouse.

Honor killings are sometimes performed even against a woman who is raped. A raped single woman will also garner no bride price if she marries, and thus she will be "worthless" to the family.

There is some evidence that homosexuality can also be grounds for honor killing by relatives. Several cases have been suspected but not confirmed. There is also a documented case of a gay Jordanian man who was shot (but not fatally) by his brother.[4]

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Locations

As of 2004, honor killings have occurred in numerous countries, including: Albania, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, ItalyTemplate:Ref, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Palestine, Sweden, Turkey, Uganda, the United Kingdom and the United States. In Europe, honor killings have been reported within the Muslim and Sikh communities. Many cases of honor killing have been reported in Pakistan, where it is known as KaroKari. In December 2005, Nazir Afzal, director of Britain's Crown Prosecution Service in west London—an area with a large number of South Asian residents—stated that the United Kingdom has seen "at least a dozen honor killings" between 2004 and 2005 [5]. Afzal notes that

I've certainly seen more cases of honor crime since July 7...When communities perceive themselves to be under threat they tend to turn in on themselves, regardless of whether that perception has any basis in fact.
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Honor killing as a cultural practice 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 mere perception that a woman has contravened the code of sexual behavior damages honor. 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. Amnesty International.
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In countries with Islamic law

There is no mention of Honor killing in the Qur'an or Hadiths. Honor killing, in Islamic definitions, refers specifically to extra-legal punishment by the family against the woman, and is forbidden by the Sharia (Islamic law). Religious authorities disagree with extra punishments such as honor killing and prohibit it, so the practice of it is a cultural issue. But since Islam has influence over vast Muslims, culturalist and murderers of females use Islam to justify honor killing even though there is no support for honor killing in Islam.

Traditional interpretations of Islamic law (or sharia) prescribe severe punishments for zina' , or extramarital sex, by both men and women. This is however, not a new practice; it has been around since ancient times and has been practiced by other religions and cultures too. Premarital sex could be punished by up to 100 lashes, while adultery is punishable by lethal stoning. The act must, however, be attested by at least four Muslim male witnesses of good character; punishments are reserved to the legal authorities, and false accusations are themselves punished severely. This is however not considered honor killing.

The execution of the Saudi Arabian princess Misha'al is an example of an honor killing in which the execution did not follow any Islamic religious court proceeding but was ordered directly by her grandfather.

Interpretations of these rules vary. Some Arabs regard it as their right under both tradition and sharia (by the process of urf), though this contradicts the views of the vast majority of Islamic scholars (fuqaha). Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran has condemned the practice as "un-Islamic", though punishment under Iranian law remains lenient. In Indonesia, generally believed to be the country with the largest Muslim population, honor killings are unknown, as also in parts of West Africa with majority-Muslim populations and many other Islamic countries like Bangladesh. According to Sheikh Atiyyah Saqr, former head of the al-Azhar University Fatwa Committee (one of the oldest and most prestigious in the Muslim world):

"Like all other religions, Islam strictly prohibits murder and killing without legal justification. Allah, Most High, says, “Whoso slayeth a believer of set purpose, his reward is Hell for ever. Allah is wroth against him and He hath cursed him and prepared for him an awful doom.” (An-Nisa’: 93) The so-called “honor killing” is based on ignorance and disregard of morals and laws, which cannot be abolished except by disciplinary punishments."[6]
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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 honour defence in Brazil, and that legislative provisions allowing for partial or complete defence in that context could be found in the penal codes of Argentina, Bangladesh, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Peru, Syria, Turkey, Venezuela and the Palestinian National Authority. [7]

Some of these, including those of Turkey, have since been abrogated.

Countries where the law can be interpreted to allow men to kill female relatives in a premeditated effort as well as 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" [8]. This has twice been put forward for cancellation by the government, but was retained by the Lower House of the Parliament[9].

Countries that allow men to kill female relatives in flagrante delicto (but not in premeditation) include:

  • Syria: Article 548 states that "He who catches his wife or one of his ascendants [sic], 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 Turkey, murder laws formerly contained a specific provision for reduction in sentence from an maximum of 24 years imprisonment to 8 years if the perpretrator was "provoked". The sentence was raised to 24 years in 2003. After EU pressure, Turkey prohibited family members from being able to claim "provocation" and thereby receive lighter sentences. [10][11]

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." [12]

Countries where honor killing is not legal but is frequently ignored in practice include:

  • Pakistan: Honor killings are supposed to be prosecuted under ordinary murder, but in practice police and prosecutors often ignore it [13]. Often a man must simply claim the killing was for his honor and he'll go free. Nilofer Baktiar, advisor to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, stated that in 2003, as many as 1,261 women were murdered in honor killings [14]. On December 08, 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 are, however, wary of the new 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 claim that in most cases it is the victim's immediate relatives who are the killers, so inherently the new law is just eyewash.
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Note

  1. Template:Note Honor killing in Italy was legally abolished in 1981 (Legge 442/81)
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See also

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References and further reading

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External links

eo:Honormurdo it:Delitto d'onore nl:Eerwraak fi:Kunniamurha sv:Hedersmord

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