"Honor Killings" of Women: An Islamic Tradition

Killing in the name of honor; thousands of women in the Middle East are murdered each year for crimes such as being raped or having premarital sex, or getting divorced, crimes that bring dishonor to their families. Slowly, people are fighting back, but the murders continue.

In 1995 a young Muslim Jordanian woman named Dalia, met an older, very masculine man named Michael. Michael, a Roman Catholic, was an enlisted man in the Jordanian National Army. Dalia and Michael, who met in a beauty parlor, subsequently began to visit each other frequently. After a short time of courting, Dalia's brother caught wind of the news that his young daughter, an unwed virgin, was courting with a non-Muslim.

Immediately, the brother (whose name has been withheld) informed his father of the rumors. Having assumed that Dalia had begun sexual relations with this man, it was Dalia's father who decided that she had brought dishonor to the family.

He waited one evening, callously, for his daughter to come home. When she opened the door to her home, he surprised her with the tip of a six inch steel blade. Her brother watched as his father silently pressed the cold metal into the soft bare skin of his daughter's chest. In mere seconds he applied enough pressure that the blade slowly became completely buried within the girl's fragile body.

Following the first thrust, he repeatedly and violently stabbed at her body, until he had inflicted seventeen wounds to her lifeless chest, arms, neck and stomach. After a short time has passed, he called the police to turn himself in, but not before he was completely sure that no amount of resuscitation could return breath to the cold dead body that now occupied his living room floor.

The murder of his daughter has restored honor to his family. The father was convicted of killing his daughter for honor and received a sentence of three months in jail. The brother who watched and did nothing was not even arrested.

In 2000, a thirteen year old girl was murdered in Jordan by her older brother, Anas. Word got out that his youngest brother had raped her. "I could not stand how people looked at me when I walked on the street," Anas said. "People were saying that my sister was not pure."

Less than one week after the rape of his sister took place, Anas confronted his tortured sister. He choked her with a rope, immobilizing her. The younger brother, the one who raped the rapist, then struck his sister repeatedly with an ax while their father observed.

"Our sister's impurity brought great dishonor to the family," Anas told me, "She had to die. Now I can walk down the street a proud man knowing that honor has been restored to my family."

Anas and his brother were sentenced to only five months in jail each for the brutal and premeditated murder of their innocent sister who was only barely a teenager.

To this day, Anas is proud of his deed. During this interview he was in a state of excited bragging, and offered details too awful to print. It speaks great volumes to the level at which this type of action is tolerated in the Islamic world, even in Jordan, a progressive Muslim state.

In Jordan alone, nearly two dozen children are heartlessly slain each year in the name of honor. Out of one hundred annually reported murders in the country, two thirds of them are crimes of honor against women. That's only the ones that are reported and prosecuted. In addition, there are over one hundred accidental deaths and suicides of both women and girls that are reported each year and are not investigated.

It is embedded in Jordanian society that women are the property of men. Honor killings have been prevalent in the region since the beginning of history, and even a few isolated religious leaders condone the practice of these murders and reinforce the idea that women are indeed property. Changes in such cultural behavior patterns cannot come over night, but they have already begun in Jordan, and the orders come from the highest offices of government in the country.

The nation of Jordan is a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of which proscribe discrimination based on sex.

The UN Committee on Eliminating All Forms of Discrimination Against Women have repeatedly criticized Jordan for failing to curve honor murders within their borders.

Representatives of the Jordanian government have reluctantly responded positively to international criticism. Before his death in 1999, King Hussein's mentioning of the problem to his parliament, warning of a, "...dangerous phenomena that remain a source of women's suffering, and which, unfortunately, constitute an inhumane violation of their basic rights."

His wife, the American-born Islamic-convert Queen Noor, has repeatedly and publicly spoken out against honor killings herself, saying, "This type of violence against women is not consistent with Islam or with our constitution ... this area is being reviewed and amendments are being proposed to make these laws more consistent with Islamic law and the constitution." She added that she has, "Very strong personal feelings as a Muslim, as a woman, as a wife and as a mother about this form of violence and every form of violence against women."

Queen Noor also affirmed that, "There is no 'gender discrimination' in Jordan's constitution and in Islamic Shari'ah, which do not distinguish between men and women, male and female, who have committed crimes."

Jordan's current reigning monarch, the peace loving Abdullah II, has made a personal push against laws in his country that allow for such killings, all of which failed in parliament, despite a protest that was 5000 people strong and was led by Prince Ali.

Abdullah's wife, the Pakistan born Queen Rania, has been on press tour to promote the image that not all Muslims and not all Islamic countries are bad. When asked by Oprah Winfrey about the gendercide in her country, the pro-women's rights queen responded passionately.

"It's very important for me to clarify that honor killings are not in any way condoned or accepted in Islam. They are, in fact, un-Islamic. These are more cultural and social aspects that we have to deal with here... we are hoping through democratic process to change these laws that we have in Jordan. It's only a matter of time before these laws that you're referring to are going to be changed."

Though prominent heads of state in the state of Jordan publicly and vociferously oppose crimes of honor, little has been done in the Jordanian houses of parliament to change things. In December 2001, Article 340 of the Penal Code, which exempted from punishment men who kill their wives or female relatives, found committing adultery, was repealed and replaced with a provision that permits a reduction in penalty only if the murder is committed immediately on finding the victim in the act of committing adultery or "in an unlawful bed."

While this is a step forward, it is only a fraction of a step, not nearly a full one. Moreover, "honorable murders" still benefit from the provisions of Articles 97 and 98, which allow for a reduction in sentence for those who commit a crime in a "fit of fury." These Articles are still applied in cases relating to honor and were used to help Anas receive a reduced sentence for the clearly premeditated murder if his sister.

Steps are being taken to globally reduce crimes against women thanks to international organizations such as the United Nations and to the out cry of women who are treated unjustly in their home countries. Though progress is being made in Jordan, it is estimated by the United Nations Population Fund that as many as 5000 women and girls are murdered by family members each year in so-called honor killings around the world.

But Jordan is not alone, and to its credit, is showing some of the most progress. In Pakistan alone, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, more than 1000 women were victims of these crimes in 2002.

According to the United Nations, honor killings have been reported in Bangladesh, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Sweden, Turkey, Uganda and the United Kingdom.

The epidemic may not come to an end for some time, but it has been identified, it is being addressed both internationally and nationally within countries such as Jordan; ones that are willing to recognize that there is indeed an epidemic and are also willing to cooperate with the international community. However, there are many areas in the Arab world, where honor killing have occurred for centuries, and may continue unabated well into the next.