Ellen R. Sheeley on "Honor" Killings
«In Jordan, there aren’t very many gender differences in how these crimes are viewed. Easy as it is to blame it on the boys/men, sadly, girls/women are part of the problem [...]. While women are >90% of the victims in Jordan, they are often complicit in the crimes. It can be mother against daughter, sister against sister. [...]
The only hate mail I got while I worked on this sensitive issue in Jordan was from women - the very women in Jordan who are either directly tasked with solving the problem or best placed to work on it (i.e., the women’s activists and nonprofits and the so-called upper class women of Amman, the capital city). I suppose it is a rather Western quality to assume that all people are basically just like us but, on this issue, it is far more complicated than that. Some people have a stake in maintaining the status quo, and not all of them are men.
In my empirical research, the primary demographic differences in people who believe in these crimes versus people who don’t were: (1) educational level [...]; (2) age (older people are more likely to believe in “honor” killings); and (3) employment status [...]. There were some differences among various cities, towns, and villages in Jordan, but not in such a way as to allow me to conclude, for example, the cities are more progressive than the villages. Gender, while I searched and searched and searched for it, was not a factor on this variable. Nor was income. No statistically significant differences [...].
Another point that needs to be made is that, in many countries, these crimes are actually state sanctioned. In Jordan, there are three penal code articles that offer leniency to the perpetrators. The average sentence is six months, but can vary from three to 24 months. These crimes are misdemeanors. Pakistan and Turkey have criminalized “honor” killings, but left in some loopholes that benefit the perpetrators. In addition, some of their judges are still looking the other way and being very soft on these crimes. [...] In these countries, “honor” suicides are beginning to take place where, to get around the newly-stiffer penalties, the perpetrators are forcing their victims to kill themselves.
While “honor” killings pre-date Islam and, thus, are un-Islamic, it is factually correct to claim that most “honor” killings occur in Arab/Muslim countries and among Arab/Muslim immigrant communities outside the Arab/Muslim world. The Jordanians in my survey recognized this. Hated it, but admitted it is so. In addition, approximately 20% of the people in my sample erroneously believe Islam condones these crimes, so there is an opportunity in the mosques to correct this misinterpretation of the Qur’an.
In 2000, the UN estimated that there are 5,000 such crimes per annum worldwide, but most people who work in this area believe this figure is vastly understated (I am among them) due to the very nature of the crime. Often they are unreported, disguised as accidents, disguised as suicides, lied about (e.g., the family will just say their murdered daughter has moved to, say, Saudi Arabia or somewhere), minimized in the official statistics (for obvious reasons - most of the states where these crimes occur are headed by dictators who don’t allow transparency, free speech, free press, anything that might reflect poorly on them) - this is just the way it is. I believe the true figures are unknowable, though the estimates are useful to the extent that they give one an idea of the relative frequency/rate in countries where these crimes occur. So Pakistan has the highest absolute numbers (but also a large population), Jordan has one of the highest per capita rates.
One opportunity/need I see in all this is to urge our lawmakers and executive branch to tie our generous aid packages to countries where these crimes exist to legislative reform (viz., remove the legal distinction in the penal code between “honor” killings and plain ol’ murder) and to objective, measurable improvements in human rights in general. The U.S. government and the West keep a country like Jordan afloat. America is their largest donor, with the EU and certain EU member states closely behind, and without our aid, the country would be even more impoverished than it already is. So we have that economic clout [...]. With all the millions they disburse in Jordan (very little of it is to be seen in actual improvements in the lives of the people there - most of it seems to be going to intelligence and security), why hasn’t some of it gone to help build a women’s shelter?! [...] Where is the transparency in how these hundreds of millions of dollars per year of our money are actually used?! Why aren’t more people here pretty ticked off about this?!
[...]
The king in Jordan is an absolute monarch. He says to us that he is against “honor” killings, and he has the power to issue a royal decree to overturn the penal code articles there that offer leniency. Lacking the political will to do that, he could also use his Hashemite legacy to influence the tribal leaders and use more traditional methods to effect reform. And yet he doesn’t. So why isn’t anyone who represents us asking him to use his power to reform these laws?! [...] To the extent that we are settling for this lack of accountability from our own leaders and funding regimes that don’t appear to truly care about “honor” killings and other human rights abuses, we are complicit in the problem.
[...]
Maybe little Dua’s horrible death will not have been in vain if it prompts the world to sit up and take notice. Now, if only we can find a way to harness this passion and package it in a way that actually gets results on the ground. Unlike so many problems in the region, this one is manageable.»
Ellen R. Sheeley, July 30th, 2007 on Nothing But Red, nothingbutred.wordpress.com
[Emphases added by me, Johanna.]
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