CRIMES OF PASSION, CRIMES OF HONOUR
Gender-based violence takes many forms, including violence of women against men. This is actually a growing phenomenon in countries where equality between men and women is growing, & is probably under-reported since men are reluctant to admit being hurt by a woman.
Woman- on- men violence has provoked the question as to whether testosterone….more prevalent in men… causes aggression or whether conflictual situations increase testosterone. The answer appears to be a bit of both.
Crimes of passion between women and men are individual, & unpremeditated. If unbearable provocation can be proved some legal systems treat these crimes with leniency. “Crimes passionelles” are usually committed impulsively by a jealous husband/wife or lover. Remember Lorena Bobbit who in 1993 in Manassas, Virginia, USA cut off her ‘more than half’ of her errant husband’s penis (subsequently re- attached)? This very practical form of revenge has actually been well-documented in Thailand since the 1960’s. Most of the Thai stories involve a passing duck which moves off with the offending object secure in its beak.
Honour crimes, also treated by some justice systems as ‘crimes passionelles’ are on the other hand pre-meditated, collective and culturally approved. In these countries defense of honour is an obligation and an extenuating circumstance.
An honour killing involves male members of a family killing a female relative believed to have damaged the family honour. Her death restores that honour. The murder can be triggered by the reality or a suspicion that a woman has talked with an unrelated male, consented to pre- or extra- marital sex, sought a divorce, or refused the family’s choice of partner. A woman who is raped may also afterwards be killed in the interests of honour. Unlike a crime of passion, honour killing is more about family ownership of sexual and reproductive rights than about sexual jealousy.
The woman’s father, brothers or uncles, or their hired hands normally commit the murder though the women of the family are usually complicit by luring her to the crime scene or otherwise facilitating the affair.
In societies where honour crime is tacitly accepted perpetrators usually receive a reduced sentence on the grounds that “honour” needs to be defended. To ensure judicial leniency an under-age male is often selected to commit the crime which is also a sign of his becoming an adult (a rite de passage).
Honour killing is not an Islamic practice, though it often occurs in Muslim-majority societies. In fact honour killing is forbidden in Islam and seems not to occur in Muslim- majority countries such as Indonesia or Malaysia.
Societies where honour killing is practiced are strongly patriarchal often referred to as “honour-based”, and found primarily in the Middle East, the Balkans, the Southern Mediterranean, and South Asia.
Patriarchy crosses faiths and cultures. In patriarchal societies, women and their reproductive power are the property of the family to be guarded and exchanged according to strict rules. If those rules are breached, or are perceived to have been breached the men of that family are obliged to eliminate the woman who has brought shame to the family.
Given the fact that the killing takes place within the family group, which can present it as an accident or as suicide, and because police and other authorities may choose to turn a blind eye, meaningful statistics on incidence are hard to find.
It is sometimes estimated that globally 5,000 girls and women are killed every year for the sake of honour. In Jordan it is estimated that between 25 and 40 women are victims each year. In the region of Punjab which straddles the India-Pakistan border the number of honour killings committed within both Muslim and Hindu communities in 1998 and 1999 was estimated at 888 each year by one source. The figure of 1000 women killed annually is often cited for Pakistan.
(See http://www.gendercide.org/case_honour.html)
Astonishing as those figures may be, new figures released by the UK police force in February 2008 make all of the above look rather modest, though admittedly the UK police figure includes mere violence as well as actual murder. The UK police reported that 17,000 women in Britain are being subjected to “honour-related” violence, including murder, every year. This figure includes sexual assault, kidnapping, beatings and forced marriage as well as actual murder but is much higher than previous figures and is based on the assumption that the victim endures about 35 episodes of violence before she speaks out.
The incidence of honour killings is thought to increase in situations of economic crisis or conflict, or where traditional patriarchal values are under threat. This occurs for example when minority communities which tolerate the practice, come into contact with mainstream European and other societies which do not share the same views. A woman in an immigrant community who is threatened with honour killing by her family is usually discriminated against not only on the basis of gender but may also encounter further ethnic, racial and gender prejudice if she seeks help from the police. The police may also ‘turn a blind eye’ for fear of being accused of cultural insensitivity.
Honour suicide can be regarded as a special variant of honour killing.
In its bid to join the European Union, Turkey has tightened the punishment for honour killings but in some conservative rural areas it is reported that some parents are seeking to spare their sons the harsher punishment now associated with killing their female relatives by pressing the women to take their own lives instead. Civil society organizations in Turkey say that the evidence suggests that girls who are considered to be dishonoured are locked in a room for days with rat poison, a pistol or a rope, and told by their families that the only course of action open to them is to take their own lives.
Eradication of this practice therefore requires a complex response to symptoms and causes. Victims and witnesses need protection. Police and the judiciary need to be trained to handle such cases; and programmes of public awareness are needed to raise the level of understanding to a point where honour is not an excuse for murder.
Penal codes which do treat honour as an excuse for murder require urgent reform. The decision of a Danish court in dealing with an incident of honour killing represents an important milestone as both the person who committed the murder and the accomplices were punished.
Flying Broom web site at:
http://en.ucansupurge.org/index.php?option=com_ content&task
In September 2005 18-year-old Pakistani girl, Ghazala, was shot dead by her brother in the middle of a street in a small town near Copenhagen. She had married a young Afghan man without notifying her family. Her spouse was also injured in the attack.
Those found guilty in this case, and their sentences are as follows:
Brother:16 years imprisonment for murder of his sister and for causing injury to her spouse.
Father: life-long imprisonment for provocation and coordination of murder.
Aunt: 14 years imprisonment and deportation for coordinating a fake peace-making meeting and entrapping the couple.
Uncle: 16 years for planning the murder and the fake meeting
Family friend: 10 years imprisonment for tracking Ghazala and helping with the murder
Brother’s friend: 10 years imprisonment for assisting with the meeting and the murder
Taxi driver: 8 years for driving the murderer to the scene Aunt’s friend: 14 years imprisonment and deportation for planning the murder and for helping to track down Ghazala
This looks like a serious attempt to make the punishment fit the crime.
However, having appropriate legislation in place and applied is a necessary but not sufficient condition for changing the values and beliefs underlying honour crimes. There is increasing emphasis globally on working not only with female victims and potential victims but also with boys and men who been perpetrators or who may be under pressure to collude in such crimes. Sweden has done some pioneering work in this field www.ab.lst.se and in Jordan a study was carried out with boys in school to try to understand and debate the issues of honour killing. Jordan in fact provides a very interesting example of a multi- facetted approach both to responding to the occurrence and the root causes of honour killing through a variety of channels