Hiding in Prison from Their Own Family

​​Pakistan and Jordan are among the countries where men kill female family members because they have violated traditional role concepts and established codes of honor. The spectrum of alleged misconduct is broad; the victims are women who want to marry a man of their own choosing, reject a marriage arranged by the family, have a sexual relationship with a man outside of marriage, are pregnant and unmarried, or want to get a divorce.

The guilt of the victim

Even women who have been raped have defiled the honor of their families in the eyes of their relatives and must be killed in order to restore the family honor. In Jordan, an average of 25-30 women are murdered every year in the name of honor, one quarter of all homicides recorded there. The number of unreported cases is estimated to be at least double that amount.

Women from all socioeconomic levels and religious persuasions are affected, and in extremely rare cases – 1-2 each year in Jordan – men also fall victim. In most cases, however, men who are threatened have more possibilities for getting to safety, such as fleeing their communities.

When prison is the only safe place

Women, on the other hand, who often have neither identity documents nor financial resources of their own, find protection only in prison in Jordan, where thus far there are no women's shelters to offer them refuge over a longer period of time.

Human rights organizations tell of women who have spent 10 years in prison, although they are innocent, because only there do they believe they are safe from their families.

The perpetrators in honor killing cases are threatened with only a light punishment. Article 98 of Jordan's penal code stipulates a maximum sentence of one year for crimes which are committed in a "fit of fury." This article is generally invoked in the case of honor killings. In over half of these cases, the women are shot, strangled, or stabbed by their brothers, reported Dr. Hani Jahshan, deputy medical examiner at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine in Amman, during the symposium "Crime in the Name of Honor," which was held in Berlin, Germany, in March and was organized jointly by Amnesty International, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, and Terre des Femmes.

Underage brothers are chosen as murderer

Underage brothers are often selected by the family to commit the murder since they are subject to an even lighter sentence. Driven to murder a beloved sister because of internalized norms and intense social pressure, many of these young men suffer from long-term traumas.

Dr. Jahshan has observed severe depression in several of the perpetrators. The belief that the murder of a female family member who has defied the social norms and moral concepts of her family or her tribe will restore the family's honor is erroneous.

"Families in which an honor killing occurs are stigmatized and destroyed forever," according to Dr. Jahshan, since the murder is a public admission of the stain on the family honor. As a result, the families are ostracized in their communities and must leave their familiar social environment. The family's single daughters frequently remain unmarried all their lives. "People who commit honor killings do not consider the future of their families," says Dr. Jahshan.

Whereas in Jordan the number of honor killings has declined in the last few years, a significant increase has been recorded in Pakistan. According to the research of Angelika Pathak, a Pakistan expert with Amnesty International for many years, officially between 1000 and 1500 women were victims of honor killings in Pakistan last year, and there as well the actual number is probably far higher.

Amnesty International reports that, for every 100 women who are killed in the name of honor, there are 25-30 male victims. However, in a country that is strongly characterized by feudal and tribal structures, murders resulting from tribal conflicts are also reported as honor killings.

A dead body to substantiate one's argument

Pakistan's first female judge, Majida Razvi, now retired and Chairperson of the National Commission on the Status of Women since 2002, explains the pattern of these murders, known as karo-kari, as follows:

"If a feudal lord or a male member of his family kills a man from another tribe during an argument, this murder is frequently justified on the grounds that the victim had an illicit relationship with a woman of the perpetrator's tribe. As proof, a girl from one of the poorer families of the offender's tribe is killed and laid beside the body of the murdered man."

In Pakistan as well, the sentences for honor killings are considerably more lenient than those for other murders. Although Pakistan's President, General Pervez Musharraf, signed a bill into law at the beginning of 2005 which explicitly establishes killing in the name of honor as murder, this law continues to allow the family of the victim to reach a financial settlement with the perpetrator and dispense with criminal proceedings.

Since the perpetrator is usually a member of their own family, however, honor killings are rarely punished. Moreover, many judges are in agreement with the traditional concepts of honor and impose only light sentences if the case comes to trial.

Thus, for Majida Razvi the law is only a first step in the right direction which must be followed by a great many more extensive legal reforms. Legal rulings by the councils of elders (jirgas), of which only men are members, cause her concern. Although they are illegal, they continue to call for the killing, rape, or compulsory marriage of women who do not behave according to traditional norms.

Katrin Schneider

© Qantara.de 2005

Translation from German: Phyllis Anderson

Qantara.de

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