JORDAN: Honour Killings Still
Tolerated
AMMAN, 11 March 2007 (IRIN) - Jordanian
law continues to be lenient on those who kill their female relatives in the name
of protecting family honour. Last year, between 15 and 20 women were stabbed,
beaten or strangled to death by family members, sometimes women themselves.
Rights activists point out a number of cultural and political obstacles
in their uphill battle to stamp out the socially acceptable practice.
And at a time when policy-makers are trying to make way for women to
gain political posts, they remain unable - and sometimes unwilling - to fight
this practice.
“There is no political will to fight so-called honour
crimes. The tribal mentality is the main driving force that makes this
phenomenon spin out of control,” said Reem Abu Hassan, a leading women’s rights
activist in the kingdom.
Since the beginning of this year, four women
have been killed by brothers, fathers or cousins who felt the women had done
something that brought disgrace on their family name.
“We have to change
the whole mentality of the nation. To spill someone’s blood that easily has
become a socially acceptable practice,” said Reem.
She said that
sometimes those who commit such murders are treated with sympathy by local
communities who see them as victims of the shameful actions of their female
relatives. Such actions range from illicit relationships with men to innocent
teenage flirting.
Male-dominated culture
“This
is a male-dominated culture. Women are not considered as important as men, who
have made it easier for family members, even women, to accept the killings,” she
adds.
In some cases, mothers and sisters helped set up a murder, or
killed with their own hands.
Last year, a girl was killed by her mother
and sister after they discovered she was in love with one of their neighbours.
Mohammad Rai - from Salt, 30km west of the capital, Amman - killed his
cousin a few years ago to uphold his family’s honour. He was 17 years old at the
time and said he did it under pressure from family elders. But a few years
later, he has no regrets.
“I would do it again if I had to. People here
would have stigmatised my entire family if I had not killed her and shame would
have followed us wherever we went,” said Rai, who is now a bus driver. He served
just six months in prison because the victim’s father dropped the charges. The
only crime Rai’s cousin committed was that she told her conservative father that
she was in love with a man from another family and that he wanted to ask for her
hand in marriage.
“We are prisoners of our own social habits, there is
nothing we can do about it,” said a defiant Rai.
Murdered
virgins
Officials from Jordan’s National Institute for Forensic
Medicine said they had encountered several incidents where young girls had been
killed ostensibly for having sexual relations with a man but autopsies had
revealed they were virgins.
But whether a murdered girl was a virgin or
not holds little weight in the eyes of her family or indeed the court.
“It is often found out that victims were virgins but when the court
looks at the case, the sentences they give are very mild compared to the crime,”
said Rana Husseini, a journalist who has been campaigning to raise awareness of
the custom.
The most recent honour crime took place on 1 March when a
23-year-old man beat his aunt with a wooden stick before strangling her to
death. The killer said he had seen an unknown man leaving the house of the
43-year-old woman.
I would do it again if I had
to. People here would have stigmatised my entire family if I had not
killed her and shame would have followed us wherever we
went. |
According to a report by the National
Institute for Forensic Medicine, the victim was a virgin.
Activists say
current legislation makes it easy for killers to get away with murder, as long
as the killing is proved to be honour-related.
Premeditated murder in
Jordan is punishable by death, but the penal code exempts from the death penalty
men who kill female relatives found committing adultery. Instead, men committing
honour crimes receive short prison sentences.
Rights activists continue
to push for tougher penalties on those who commit honour crimes.
Queen
Rania, the wife of King Abdullah, is a strong advocate of women’s rights issues
and a leading supporter of changes in honour killing legislation. A Royal
Commission on Human Rights, set up by King Abdullah, has already proposed
stricter measures against honour killings.
However, when the government
introduced a bill outlining stiff penalties for honour killers, parliament
rejected it outright, saying it would encourage adultery and create new social
problems.
MPs who supported the draft law said it was shot down because
the majority of lawmakers come from tribal backgrounds and cannot risk angering
their electors.