Where does it take place?

I am talking about this subject because I believe that it is a very important case that “we” should shed the lights on it.

I’m going to focus today about where it takes place. According to various websites; most "honor" killings of women occur in Muslim countries, “such killings "have been reported in Bangladesh, Britain, Brazil, Germany, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Pakistan, Morocco, Sweden, Turkey, Uganda, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran."” Adding to that it also takes place “Throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.


Statistic showed in the “United Nations Population Fund” that approximately 5,000 women are killed each year. But off course this number is very small, when taking into consideration the number of deaths in Turkey, Jordan, Pakistan, and Palestine.

Who kills the girls and women? Not a very hard question; the “typical killer” is usually the father, the husband, or even the brother of the victim. In most cases the killer is chosen by the family or their communities which are the teenage brothers because they spend less time in prison and their punishment will be lighter.

I will shed the lights more today on these crimes that take place in my own country. Jordan!

On the 18th of April 1994; a 16-year-old girl was “killed at the hands of her brother because she had been raped by another brother.”

Rana Husseini, a journalist for the New York Times; stated the “"[My work involves] exposing these crimes for what they really are, cold-blooded and senseless murders, and struggling with the law to restore dignity to women and consider them full human beings," she told IRIN in the capital Amman.”

Till now there is no accurate number on the deaths that take place in Jordan but according to a “report by the Christian Science Monitor in March 2005, honour crimes account for one-third of all violent deaths in Jordan." What makes me think more is the continuation on this websites that says: “This runs counter to the perception of Jordan as one of the most liberal countries in the Middle East, where gender discrimination is officially minimal; women have voting rights, are present in parliament and government and hold influential positions in other sections of society.” and yet honor crimes still takes place!

According to Husseini, almost 70 percent of murdered women in honour killings are virgins!

Another example of these crimes is:- Two sisters, aged 20 and 27, were killed with axes in the capital Amman on Monday, according to a report in the Jordan Times newspaper. Officials told the paper the three brothers - who are in detention - admitted that they carried out the killing for reasons of "family honour".

“It was a brutal scene - one victim's head was nearly cut clean off.”

"Under the existing law, people found guilty of committing honour killings often receive sentences as light as six months in prison." I believe that murders should stay in prison for the rest of their lives. To suffer, to feel the pain they caused when they killed another!

To know more about these crimes that take place visit this website:-
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/jordan0404/

To know about Palestine and Pakistan click on the name of the country.

Dana...