WUNRN
Crimes of Honor
In
Prepared by:
Lubna Dawany Nimry
Attorney at Law
June
2009
Table of Contents
1. Introduction 3
2. Definition 3
3. Contextual Background 4
4. Legal Background 5
5. General Locale 6
6. Underlying Rationale (seasons) 7
7. Perpetrators 7
8. The Jordanian Case 8
8-1 General 8
8-2 Combating
the Social Syndrome 10
8-3 Defenders 11
8-4 Statistics 11
9. Recommendations 13
10. References 14
1.
INTRODUCTION
"With
cursing and pleading eyes, the victim gave her murder a farewell look, casting
an eternal spell over him, his family, and whoever encouraged him to commit
such a shameful "Crime of honor!".
"Crimes
of honor"! What a horrifying and paradoxical title! Are they really
"crimes of honor", committed in the name of honor? They are crimes,
but certainly not of honor; they are against honor, nullifying it from its
noble reference.
To
me, no crime whatsoever, may be justified for the sake of this moral cause,
honor. These crimes are committed to perpetuate shame, ignorance, backwardness
and social conspiracy; they are sometimes referred to as crimes of shame and
dark ages.
2.
DEFINITION
In
the Arab Islamic world, there are negative attitudes towards the birth of a
girl, connecting females to the concept of "honor" (or lack of it
thereof).
Honor,
especially in the
Crimes
of honor are (by far) socially applauded crimes, applying male's superiority to
liquidate their woman folks should they commit or be suspect of a bad sexual
behavior.
In
their (edited) book 'honor', Lynn Welchman and Sara Hossain define "crimes
of honor" as follows:
"The
definition of 'crimes of honor' is by no means straight forward. The
imprecision (in particular in the West) of its use are among the reasons for
caution in use of the phrase. At its most basic, the term is commonly used as
shorthand, to flag a type of violence against women characterized by (claimed) 'motivation' rather than by
perpetrator or form of manifestation." They quote Lama Abu Odeh as
saying.'
"A
paradigmatic example of a 'crime of honor' is the killing of a woman by her
father or brother for engaging in, or being suspected of engaging in, sexual
practices before or outside marriage."
The
two editors refer to the UN Special Rapporateur's report (in Lebanon) on
violence in 1999 as having received 'numerous communications' on the subject of
'honor crimes' against women, whereby the family kills a female relative deemed
to have defiled the honor of the family". She continues:
"Honor
is defined in terms of women's assigned sexual and familial roles as dictated
by traditional family ideology. Thus, adultery, premarital relationships (which
may or may not include sexual relations), rape, and falling in love with an
'inappropriate' person may constitute violations of family honor".
3.
CONTEXTUAL BACKGROUND
Universally,
women are discriminated against, including the civilized, western countries; it
is, more or less, a man's world. To some it has always been considered as a
gender straggle whereby man has always emerged victorious.
It
is more acute in the Arab and Moslem world where people tend to give more
weight and importance to what the community thinks rather than thinking of
their own individual interests.
In
many instances, if the society does not know of a 'bad sexual conduct', women
may escape harm or killing. Sexual breach is tarnishing or hurting family honor
if it becomes social knowledge- in other words, same fury of hypocrisy.
Historically,
and in the pre-Islamic era, women, especially newly born girls were considered
liabilities (from all aspects).
Some
Arab tribes (again pre Islamic) used to bury their girls alive until Islam came
and banned t his inhumane practice.
Although
some fanatic preachers or clergymen would condone crimes of honor, Islam would
never punish adulterers until it is proven (by far trustworthy witnesses). In
other words Islam, in this case, would be punishing some kind of prostitution,
a public offence (which is banned even in the West).
So,
it is mostly societal traditions and customs that drive people of this part of
the world to resort to such shameful, irreligious acts. In Islam, it is a sin
to take people's lives in one's own hands.
Crimes
of honor are therefore social in the full sense of the word. Perpetrators see
it as 'social cleansing of shame', seeking the community's approval.
Some
of them would go out of household, brandishing their tool of murder shouting
"now I have cleansed my honor of shame; I killed my (relative)
female".
This
is a clear indication of how much they give weight to what the society thinks.
A
final, peculiar phenomenon in this context is that family women do encourage,
applaud and endorse crimes of honor.
4.
LEGAL BACKFROUND
Deriving
from European laws (especially French and Italian), the Ottoman Empire, ruling
almost all Arab countries, since the 16th century, enacted lower
penalties on perpetrators of 'crimes of honor'.
Article
324, paragraph 2 of the French Penal Code of the year 1810, which the Ottomans
adopted and practiced, gives the husband a lower penalty if he caught his wife
committing adultery in the marital house. The old French law was lenient with
crimes committed by husband vs. wife, affected y the Roman laws which
considered that the utmost control within families is for the father and
husband.
Article
587 of the Italian Rocco Code enabled consideration of the 'cause of honor' in
homicide or physical injuries, providing: 'whoever discovers unlawful sexual
relations (i.e. sexual relations outside marriage) on the part of their spouse,
daughter, or sister and in the fit of fury occasioned by the offence to their
or their family's honor causes their death, shall by punished with a prison
term from there to seven years.
Inheriting
the Roman, French, Italian, Ottoman laws, legislative measures dealing with
crimes of honor in the Arab
While
the penal code condemns the perpetrator, they may grant full or partial excuse
which could reduce the penalty or totally exempt murderers from punishment.
Jordanian
law, article 340 (a) "stipulates" he who discovers his wife or one of
his 'maharem' (female relatives of such degree of consanguinity as precludes
marriage), while committing adultery with another man and kills, wounds, or injures one or both of them, is exempt
from any penalty; (b) he who discovers his wife, or any of his sisters, or
female relatives with another man in an illegitimate bed, and kills, wounds or
injures one or both of them, benefits from a reduction of penalty.
However,
article 98 of the Jordanian law stipulates: "he who commits crime due to
extreme anger caused by an illegal, and to some extend, dangerous act,
committed by the victim benefits from reduced penalty."
5.
GENERAL LOCALE
There
is a common, well spread, misconception that crimes of honor do occur in the
rural and Bedouin areas. Jordanian
activists and statisticians insure that this is not true; they maintain that
the vast volume of those crimes do take place in the urban, popular areas.
Bedouins
in the popular heritage are known to be wise in handling similar affairs, and
the 'sheikh' of the tribe has a big positive role in reaching amicable
solutions to such matters as sexual misconduct.
It
is well known, all over the world, and
6.
UNDERLYING
RATIONALE (Reasons)
-
Rumors
-
Suspicion
-
Victim of rape
-
Victim of incest
-
Pregnant out of
wedlock
-
Marrying against
family wishes
-
Financial reasons
-
Inheritance
-
Missing from home
-
Talking to or
seeing a man, not family member
-
Caught in brothel
(house of prostitution)
-
Escaping from
home
-
Prostitution (in
some countries committed by moral police)
7.
PERPETRATORS
(According
to statistics in the following order
-
Brother
-
Father
-
Son
-
Cousins and
nephews
-
Uncle
-
Mother
-
Sister
-
Other relatives
8.
THE JORDANIAN
CASE
8-1
General
In
In
some areas of Jordan, a woman's life is at risk if she talks to a man not being
a relative, or refuses to marry someone who was chosen by the family, or marry
someone of whom her family does not approve, or marry a man from different
religion. In brief, she will be endangering her life if she has done anything
to bring social and/or sexual dishonor to herself, which will automatically
affect her family's honor.
Although
women are nominally granted equality under
There
is no law that grants a man the right to kill a female relative if she brings
shame to the family. However, such killers spend an average of six months to
one year in prison. If he is a juvenile, he will be put in one of
rehabilitations centers, taking into consideration that this incident of
killing a female, will not be filed in his records as a juvenile and by law his
records are protected from mentioning such issues. This encourages families to choose a juvenile
to do the killing. Article 98 of the Penal Code can reduce the penalty up to six
months if the victim's family waives charges against perpetrator who happens to
be another family member.
Traditions
require that a woman marry only with the approval of a male guardian. Male
family members feel that they are guardians of the family's reputation and they
have the right to punish any female member who tarnishes or damages this
reputation or even challenges the power dynamics in the family. Usually, women are taking care of the family
in the house, while men work outside. The life of women is destined to raise
the children and take care of the household. Their well-being and protection is
the responsibility of a male relative: the father, husband or brother. The
father has to sustain his daughter until she gets married. If a married woman
gets divorced she usually returns to her family and her father will take care
of her again.
Children
'born out of wedlock' are considered a product of a crime, she can not claim
custody for such children, and they are placed in government care until they
are eighteen years of age.
A
divorced woman loses custody of her legitimate children if she remarries.
Men
can pass their nationality to their foreign wives and children, while Jordanian
women married to foreigners are not entitled to have the same right.
Men
would never marry a girl that is not a virgin, although some do not mind having
affairs or marry foreign women who are not virgins. The family is responsible
to keep their daughters relations 'clean'. Middle and higher class families are
changing. However, the 'virginity' is still very important in society.
Otherwise, the reputation of the family is endangered, and it will affect all
girls in the family which will reflect on decreasing the chances for these
girls to get a good husband, and people would look down on such a family. The
only way to clear this situation is to kill the girl who committed the wrongful
act so that the shame would be erased.
On
the other hand, in case of family violence related to honor, and to protect the
women from being abused or killed, they will be kept in prison. Time spent in
prison might vary from weeks to tens of years. Governors at different
governorates will be using "preventing from Crime" law for such
cases. Governors have the authority to imprison women who are threatened by
family members to protect women's lives, as there are no shelters that would
protect these ladies and the only place for protection is prison under the term
of "protective custody".
Jordanian
NGOs together with few governmental and security departments were gathered
March 2006 and formed the "Jordanian Coalition to support the women who
are at the protective custody". There was close cooperation between this
coalition and Jweideh Women's Correction and
The
Coalition started its visits through the New Start project, and then visits the
Governor who arranged for putting them in jail collected information, then
discussed the issue, if possible, with their families and measured the risks of
their lives at that point.
The
number of ladies that were dealt with through this project was 122 women. 54 of
them were given legal consultations, or presented in front of different courts
and/or given shelter with their children.
8-2
Combating the
Social Syndrome.
Although
Jordan is signatory to the convention on the Eliminations of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women and the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, the Lower House of the Parliament failed to end impunity for
men who murder female family members in the name of preserving the
"honor" of the family.
Public
debate about "honor killings" heightened on the heels of this
legislative failure. Civil rights activists intensified their lobbying against
the unjust Penal Code articles 98 and 340.
The
debate against this tragic issue, which claims 22-25 lives a year, is almost
nationwide now, putting intensified pressure over the legislative body to incur
amendments to the unjust laws.
8-3
Defenders.
Defenders
of the antique, unlawful law do advocate that these can also be called
"crimes of passion".
This
significance of their defences lies in the fact that the crime may be committed
in a 'fit of fury' or a 'sudden spark of anger'. They allow the court to rule
on "manslaughter", rather than "pre-determined"
murder-hence, they request a reduced penalty.
On
the other hand, and as mentioned before, there is the social conspiracy of
silence and condoning, in addition to some fanatic social and religious
defenders who terrorize others under the banner "honor and chastity of
society".
8-4
Statistics.
Official
statics indicate that the majority of women killed in honor crimes are
predominantly teen agers. Most are buried in unmarked graves, disgraced even in
death.
Jordan
has one of the lowest rates of homicide; however, a 1998 United Nations study
of official figures from the mid 1990's showed that murder was the most
frequent crime against women, and the honor crimes (including murder, and
accidental murder) accounted for largest category 55% report violence,
especially if perpetrated by a member of
the family.
The
UN estimates 5000 a year (victims, but not necessarily killed) categorized as
follows:
-
Permitted under
Jordanian law, articles 98 and 340;
-
Usually carried
out by father or brother of victim;
-
Partner faces
penalties if victim found not to have been virgin.
Additionally,
there is an average of 25 crimes in
The
following are based on activists' investigations over a period of almost 13
years, (taking into consideration that the real numbers could be higher that
are registered under other different crimes as mentioned above):
Year Number
2009
10 ( till the end of April)
2008
4
2007
19
2006
17
2005
19
2004
20
2003
18
2002
22
2001
19
2000
21
1999
19
1998
23
1997
25
9.
RECOMMENDATIONS
(1)
Awareness towards
the International Human Right Law (as the umbrella);
(2)
Creating a human
rights library, and finding human rights culture specially among youngsters;
(3)
Incessant
attempts to combat the unjust articles of the Jordanian Penal Code and
Preventing Crime Law;
(4)
Social awareness
towards:
-
gender equality
-
Islamic teachings
of respect of females.
-
Islamic penalty
of taking peoples lives without justification.
-
Good customs and traditions.
-
Bad customs and
traditions.
-
The real meaning
of 'honor'.
(5)
Government
support and interference;
(6)
Bigger role
of clergymen of both religions;
(7)
Comprehensive
activists campaigning on all fields and targeting all audience;
(8)
Improve services,
including shelters, extended to abused women
10.
REFERENCES.
(1)
'Honor",
edited by Lynn Welchman and Sara Hossain, Spinifer Press, Victoria, Zed Books,
London & New York 2005.
(2)
Female Killings
in Jordan, UNIFEM, 2007.
(3)
Honor Killings
(Arabic), A Legal Study, Fadi Magheizel, Mirrella Abdul Sattar, Joseph &
Lore Mgheizel, 1999.
(4)
Internet Blogs
& Sites, with special acknowledgement to the well known Jordanian activist
Ms. Rana Al Husseini and her thorough investigations.
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