WUNRN
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جلال
فونديشن JALAL FOUNDATION |
An
Afghan Women-led, Women-focused Organization
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HONOR KILLINGS IN
AFGHANISTAN
By:
Dr. Massouda Jalal[1][1]
Honor killing is a sinister phenomenon
that has a pre-Islamic origin. In the
context of Afghanistan, female- directed honor killing is the act of murdering
a woman who is perceived to have brought dishonor to the family, usually by her own brother, husband, father, or
other relatives, regardless of whether the perception is valid or not.
Acts that Incite Honor Killings of Women in Afghanistan
Acts that are deemed to bring dishonor
to the family and trigger honor killings are constantly changing. In the old times, those acts commonly consist
of marital infidelity, refusal to cooperate in pre-arranged marriage, sexual or
romantic relations with a man other than a husband, loss of virginity before
marriage, and breaking up of an engagement. The list of moral offenses
multiplied through time to include even those that are not considered to be
such in many societies, such as: working as an actress or announcer in visual
media, engaging in social activism, running away from abusive husbands and
in-laws, exercise of rights and freedom, and pre-marital courtship. More unfortunately, even women who are
victims of crimes and unfortunate circumstances - such as rape, molestation,
forced prostitution, abduction, and abandonment by fiancee – also fall prey to
honor killing nowadays. Baad, the
practice of giving away of a girl/woman to appease a wronged party, remains
part of Afghanistan’s tradition. Any woman/girl who refuses to be subject to
this tradition could also be murdered in the name of saving her family’s
honor.
Prevalence of Honor Killing: Then and Now
Honor killings have been widely
pervasive in Afghanistan before and during the regime of the Taliban. The
practice somehow ebbed down during the reconstruction decade that followed the
US-led invasion in 2001. Nevertheless,
incidents of women’s incarceration in family cellars, female suicides, self
immolation, and so-called accidental deaths continued to be reported which
looked like modified or masked versions of honor killing.
In 2011, the government began a peace
process that brings back Talibans into the mainstream of society. Since then,
newspapers began to report a resurgence of honor killing nationwide. The Afghan
Independent Human Rights Commission raised this alarm in a statement last
October 2012, stating that 60 cases of honor killings were reported in the
first six months of the Afghan calendar alone. This is an average of 10 honor
killings a month, excluding the many more incidents in remote areas that
happened without being reported. The
return of the Taliban appears to herald a message that it is “open season” once
more in terms of women’s abuse and oppression.
Consequently, incidents of violence against women continue to rise,
along with brazen and heinous forms of criminalities against women such as
beheadings, lacerations, hangings, torture, public executions, and
assassinations.
Women who escape honor killing are sent to prisons for ‘moral crimes’. The Human Rights Watch’s report dated March
2012 states that even if official statistics are not publicly available, its studies and work in three prisons show
that there were approximately 400 women and girls who are imprisoned for “moral
crimes”. They comprise about half of all women in Afghanistan’s prisons and
virtually all of the teenage girls in juvenile detention facilities. Many of these women prefer to remain in
prison because they know that once they are released, they will be killed by
relatives as punishment for bringing shame to their families. Elopement and imprisonment both carries a
stigma of immorality that, by tradition, justify honor killing. Thus, women who run away from home or have
stayed in prison stand very slim chance of having a fresh start in life with
their families because they are either subjected to honor killing or get
repudiated by them.
Key Factors that Sustain Honor Killings in Afghanistan
The practice of honor killing in
Afghanistan is sustained by the confluence of numerous cultural, social,
political and economic factors.
First, Afghanistan is an “honor and
shame society”. Unlike many societies whose norms are determined by standards
of what is “right and wrong”, Afghanistan’s culture is largely based on what is
“honorable or shameful”. In general,
people do not think or behave according to what is right or wrong, but
according to what will bring honor or shame.
In this country, honor is as precious as life, and when honor is lost
(through shame), death is the only thing that will bring it back. In a paradigm
of right and wrong, killing is altogether wrong. But in a paradigm of honor and shame, killing
of a person who brought shame is honorable, regardless of whether it is right
or wrong. Rape is wrong but in a
society of honor and shame, rape is nothing but shame and those who are
perceived to bring about shame are subjected to honor killing. The paradigm of
honor and shame also explains why instead of killing a rapist who did wrong to
a woman it is the rape victim who is killed.
The shameful consequence is more important than the wrong act that
caused it.
This is also one of the reasons why the
past decade of reconstruction and reforms in Afghanistan did not radically
correct the maladies in the lives of Afghan women. The Constitution guaranteed
women equal rights and the EVAW law made nearly all forms of violence against
women punishable. The legal framework established what is right and wrong in a
society that operates in a paradigm of honor and shame. The ‘disconnect’ between these two paradigms
left the law un-implemented and traditions dominating social transactions.
Second, apart from traditions, lack of
education among an overwhelming majority of the people makes them highly
receptive to the influence of religious extremists who promote the ideology of
patriarchy and women’s oppression. In a
society where women do not have a voice, they are objectified as material
things that could be disposed in exchange for economic, political, and social
gains. Extremist influence distorts the peoples’ notion of what is right and
wrong, especially for women. For example, Afghan women are assumed to consent
to forced marriage. When they do otherwise, they are deemed to bring shame to the
family and have to be killed. Extremism also promotes a perverse perception of
what is honorable and what is shameful. Thus, running away from home is
regarded as disgraceful while killing a daughter is hailed as heroic and
honorable.
A third factor that contributes to the
flourishing of honor killing is the continuing inability of the State to
enforce the rule of law. The policy and
legal frameworks are relatively robust but the judicial apparatuses are inadequate
and inept. Justice mechanisms that exist are unable to reach remote localities
where honor killings are rampant. And those that are functional are run by men
who either misconstrue traditional practices as Islamic or are influenced by
the gender biases they were brought up with.
In a country of continuing armed conflict like Afghanistan, justice
continues to flow in a very slow grind. In such a situation, survivors get
victimized many times by the system and by those who are supposed to dispense
justice and protect their rights.
Possible Ways Forward
Clearly, Afghanistan must be exorcised
of pathological extremist ideologies if honor killing is to be erased
totally. This is a difficult thing to
attain but is not impossible, especially in the current context where former
Taliban combatants are making a comeback as to communities through the government’s peace program. We need national leaders to champion a
campaign for massive cultural transformation that will examine distorted
interpretations of religious messages, school curricula, messages in media, and
existing relationship structures and norms in all aspects of life. We need a cultural re-birth where people’s
minds and behaviors are transformed toward a way of life that embraces the rule
of law, democracy, respect for human rights and non-violence.
Empowering women and making them active
participants in such a process of cultural revolution is an imperative. As long as women are silenced and
disempowered, society will always treat them in a dehumanizing way that
contribute to all forms of female-directed violence, including honor killing.
In this connection, women’s networks and coalitions need to be supported to
expand their outreach and implement women’s empowerment interventions,
especially in hard- to- reach areas. Movement towards women’s empowerment
should also be an agenda of government, social institutions, civil society
organizations, as well as the business, religious and academic sectors. It is not just a matter of enabling women to
enjoy their rights. It is also a matter of building social foundations that
will repel extremism and allow democracy, rule of law and non-violence to
blossom through generations. Women who are in prison because of moral crimes
should be relocated to a transition village while their respective families and
communities undergo counseling and preparation to accept them back and help
them begin a new life. Released women
prisoners need to be organized and linked with each other for mutual support
and empowerment.
The government of Afghanistan is
potentially the single biggest and most powerful force that could address the
issue of honor killings in the short and long term periods. In the short term, its national and local
officials should come out in the open and run an aggressive information campaign
declaring that honor killing is a heinous crime that is punishable under the
law. It should also undertake a high
profile announcement about prominent people who committed honor killings and
the punishments that each of them meted through the courts. Information and advocacy against honor
killing should be a mandatory content of messages by government officials to
the people for a continuous period of two years. Justice personnel should go through
reorientation and gender awareness training and certain NGOs should be
accredited to monitor the performance of the courts in the disposition of honor
killing cases. In the communities,
peoples’ mechanisms should be established to support families who face crises related
to dishonor and enable them to deal with the situation without resorting to
lawlessness and violence. Informal
justice mechanisms must be capacitated to act in accordance with the provisions
of the law.
At the international level, States must
come together to recognize that honor killing is a heinous crime that deserve
the severest form of punishment to the offenders. They could forge an international covenant to
eliminate honor killing within the next two decades, setting specific
deliverables that include the institutionalization of data collection and
management system, capacity development of formal and informal justice
personnel, introduction of alternative ways of resolving issues of dishonor
within families, cultural reforms, and the empowerment of women.
There is nothing honorable about honor
killing. It is plain murder which is anti human, anti Islam and anti rule of
law. Genuine honor does not need to be
defended and killing in any form could never bring back a lost honor. It is more
honorable to live a life of shame than to become a murderer of your kin and
profess to redeem honor with it.