An honor killing or honour killing (also called a customary killing) is the murder of a member of a family or social group by other members, due to the belief of the perpetrators (and potentially the wider community) that the victim has brought dishonour upon the family or community. Honour killings are directed mostly against women and girls.
The perceived dishonor is normally the result of one of the following behaviors, or the suspicion of such behaviors: (a) dressing in a manner unacceptable to the family or community, (b) wanting to terminate or prevent an arranged marriage or desiring to marry by own choice, (c) engaging in heterosexual sexual acts outside marriage, or even due to a non-sexual relationship perceived as inappropriate, and (d) engaging in homosexual acts. Women and girls are killed at a much higher rate than men.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates that perhaps as many as 5,000 women and girls a year are murdered by members of their own families. Many women's groups in the Middle East and Southwest Asia suspect the victims are at least four times more.
Honor killings in history
Matthew Goldstein has noted that honor killings were encouraged in ancient Rome, where male family members who did not take actions against the female adulterers in their family were "actively persecuted"
Definitions
In the modern age, the term was first used by a Dutch scholar of Turkish society, Ane Nauta in 1978. Nauta sought a term that could be used in distinguish honour killings from blood feuds.
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.
The loose 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 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 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 tend to support the honor killing of one of their own. Alternatively, matriarchs may be motivated not by personal belief in the misogynistic ideology of women as property, but by 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 failing to "purify" the family name.
There is some evidence that homosexuality can also be perceived as grounds for honor killing by relatives. In one case, a gay Jordanian man was shot and wounded by his brother. In another case, a homosexual Turkish student, Ahmet Yildiz, was shot outside a cafe and later died in hospital. Sociologists have called this Turkey's first publicized gay honor killing.[10][11]
Men can also be the victims of honour killings by members of the family of a woman with whom they are perceived to have an inappropriate relationship.
HONOR KILLING IN DIFFERENT CULTURES
According to the UN in 2002:
The report of the Special Rapporteur... concerning cultural practices in the family that are violent towards women (E/CN.4/2002/83), indicated that honour killings had been reported in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Turkey, Yemen, and other Mediterranean and Persian Gulf countries, and that they had also taken place in western countries such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom, within migrant communities.
There is a strong positive correlation between violence against women, and women's lack of social power and equality on the one hand, and a baseline of development, associated with access to basic resources, health care, and human capital, such as literacy on the other - as research by Richard G. Wilkinson shows. In a male-dominated society, there is more inequality between men, and women lose out not just physically and economically, but crucially because men who feel subordinated will often try to regain a sense of their authority in turn by excessive subordination of those below them, i.e. women. Wilkinson says that in male-dominated societies, both men and women suffer more violence and worse health.
According to Widney Brown, advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, the practice of honor killing "goes across cultures and across religions."
Pakistan
In Pakistan honor killings are known locally as karo-kari. An Amnesty International report noted "the failure of the authorities to prevent these killings by investigating and punishing the perpetrators." Recent cases include that of three teenage girls who were buried alive after refusing arranged marriages.
Statistically, honor killings have a high level of support in Pakistan's rural society, despite widespread condemnation from human rights groups. In 2002 alone over 382 people, about 245 women and 137 men, became victims of honor killings in the Sindh province of Pakistan. Over the course of six years, more than 4,000 women have died as victims of honour killings in Pakistan from 1999 to 2004.
According to women's rights advocates, the concepts of women as property, and of honor, are so deeply entrenched in the social, political and economic fabric of Pakistan that the government mostly ignores the regular occurrences of women being killed and maimed by their families. Frequently, women murdered in "honour" killings are recorded as having committed suicide or died in accidents.
A conference held in May 2005 in Islamabad, Pakistan addressed whether Pakistani law, governments and international agencies were having any success in reducing honor killings in the country. They found that more cases of honor killing are being reported rather than hidden, and more women are having the courage to come forward. But, they found there was a severe lack of proper implementation of laws and assurances that men who commit honor killings are not given lighter sentences.
Honour killings have taken the lives of innumerable women, many men, and even young girls throughout Pakistan
According to the jirgas, in cases where a woman is believed to have 'dishonoured' her family with immoral conduct (having a male friend, marrying a man of her choice or seeking divorce), all those responsible should be killed or otherwise punished. Inevitably, the undefined concept of 'honour' and of what undermines it leads to almost every act of female disobedience amounting to 'dishonouring' the family. In fact, it is merely the rumour of a woman's inappropriate behaviour that damages the 'honour' of her family and hence the truth of such an allegation does not need to be established.
Another problem with the system of honour killings is that jirgas allow the families of those who have besmirched the honour to pay compensation instead of being killed; this further undermines the rule of law.
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