The Role Of Honor Killings In The Muslim World

The societal codes contained in the Hammurabi’s laws that were used to govern the conduct of people in the community presents the husband as having absolute power over life and death in his family. As a result, since 6000BC, women were exposed to too much brutality from men in case they engaged in immoral acts (Madek 53). Women were supposed to remain faithful to their husbands and to maintain their innocence until they become married. Any sexual irregularity resulted in severe punishments to the victim, which includes honor killings of wife and daughters by the husband. However, for many decades since the establishment of the Muslim world, honor killings have been popular among the Muslims. The Islamic law grants man the powers to punish his wife for infidelity but denies the wife similar rights. Consequently, women usually find themselves victims of sexual misconduct in the society. The honor of a family is determined by the honor of ladies, and thus, they are expected to maintain high moral standards and laxity to engage in indiscriminate

It might sound impossible that honor can be risks to people’s lives, nonetheless, it is true because some people can kill for the sake of protecting honor. For instance, some cultures in this world, specifically in Islamic cultures, they have this concept that relates to honor and violence. According to Robert Kiener, an award-winning writer, and editor from Cambridge University, he wrote in his article “Honor Killings” about the horrible truth of the honor killings. He explained how the females are treated in those cultures and stated that “..any female who commits or is suspected of committing an “immoral” act should be killed to “restore honor” to her family”(Kiener 183). This mostly happens to the Islamic community because they are a huge protector of honor and they value it greatly. Thus, they will do whatever they can just to preserve it, and it includes killing a family member. Considering this is a great example of how honor can be so dangerous for the civilization. It can cause people to think that in order to preserve honor, they can just threat, hurt, and kill people. Honor can lead to violence situations and it is unhealthy for the society and the

The World Health Organization states that globally, about 38% of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner. In the Middle East and other parts of the world, planned domestic homicides, or honor killings, are carried out due to the belief of the perpetrators that the victim has brought dishonor upon the family or community. According to Human Rights Watch, honor killings are generally performed against women for "refusing to enter into an arranged marriage, being the victim of a sexual assault, seeking a divorce—even from an abusive husband—or committing adultery," or exhibiting behavior perceived to have dishonored the family. In some parts of the world, where there is a strong social expectation for a woman to be a virgin prior to marriage, a bride may be subjected to extreme violence, including an honor killing, if she is deemed not to be a virgin on her wedding night due to the absence of blood. Bride burning or dowry killing is a form of domestic violence in which a newly married woman is killed at home by her husband or husband's family due to their dissatisfaction over the dowry provided by her family. The act is often a result of demands for more or prolonged dowry after the marriage. Dowry violence is most common in South Asia, especially in India. In 2011, the National Crime Records Bureau reported 8,618 dowry

Figure 2. Violence Against Women in Pakistan in 2013. Adapted from “Life For All Pakistan: 3 Rapes in one week” William, X. P. (2014 April 29), by the Las Vegas

The American Anthropological Association (AAA) has seen their share of criticism regarding their view of cultures. The Ayaan Hirsi Ali (AHA) Foundation has taken up a stance to do anything within their power to fight for the rights of women worldwide, specifically pertaining to honor violence. There seems to be serious philosophical tension between the AAA and the AHA. In this paper, I will set out to discuss this tension in three ways. The first thing I will do is to try and present the AAA’s position with as much accuracy and charitability as I can. The second thing I will try to do is to apply the AAA’s stance specifically to honor violence. Lastly, I will argue for my view of the AAA’s position. Hopefully, I will offer a compelling case

The article by Meetoo and Miraz define extreme forms of domestic violence, which often lead to the death of a woman at the hands of her loved ones or community. Interestingly, "honour" only arises as a motivation for murder when religion or ethnic communities are involved. In the article, the author asserts that ethicized women (women of colour and other minorities) who are victims of honour killings are unrecognized in both multicultural discussion and domestic violence discussion. Since 9/11, these women have become much more visible, but unfortunately this increased recognition is due to a heightened sense of fear and danger associated with the idea of a "Muslim alien 'other'". By employing an approach focused more on human rights, people

Honor based violence and domestic violence are two common forms of violence that exist in our world today, and they have for many years (Devaney, 2014; Hague, Gill, & Begikhani, 2013; Olwan, 2013). Honor based violence covers a wide variety of violent acts performed by a male relative that are done in order to preserve family honor (Eshareturi, Lyle, & Morgan, 2014), and this type of violence is associated most often with Middle Eastern nations (Belfrage, Strand, Ekman, Hasselborg, 2012; Olwan, 2013; Standish, 2014). Domestic violence is an umbrella term for a variety of actions such as rape, as well as assaults of both the physical and verbal varieties (Policastro, & Payne, 2013). While the rationale and execution of each of these types of violence varies (Chesler, 2010; Eshareturi et al., 2014), there are underlying similarities that exist among both.

However, in Saudi Arabia killing people in the name of honor will not be considered as illegal and therefore it will not be counted as a crime, an evidence of this is that a women 45 years old originally from Sri Lanka was “being stoned to death after being convicted of adultery in Saudi Arabia - while the man she was caught with faces 100 lashes” (Wheatstone, 2017). Moreover, another evidence which supports this notion is that a Saudi Arabian woman from Riyadh was “woman was murdered by her father for chatting on the social network site Facebook” (Correspondent, 2017). These demonstrates that not all crimes are considered as deviant

It’s hard to second guess the individual soldiers and their actions in the case of the two Afghans that attempted to elope. I’m sure they were just doing what was correct procedure for security threat at the time. Had they interpreted the Father’s intent or motivation for wishing to see his daughter they likely would’ve reached a different conclusion to the conflict. This scenario highlights the need to have interpreters that are well versed in local customs and culture, had any of the soldiers or interpreters been dialed into the fact that what the two young elopers were doing would be grounds for an honor killing they would likely choose a different COA. I’m also interested in the timeline that this case occurred, I know early on in the conflict US service members were not clued in on the honor killing to restore a family’s name and reputation but after a couple of high profile cases here in the States I would think that someone might have seen the danger in allowing the father to see his daughter. The soldiers were no doubt applying the golden rule in allowing the father to see his daughter. Being a father myself if my daughter ever ran away I would place a pretty high premium on seeing her and most authorities would allow that once she was detained, not thinking twice about what my motivations to see her are.

Many people have the chance to be great citizens, however their actions of oppression towards others defines them as evil. These horrible events are often seen in areas with poor government, religious beliefs, or corrupt laws. In the Muslim culture, women in Afghanistan are highly oppressed because of verses from the Qu'ran; this oppression has violated women's rights for years, and although women have been treated poorly for a long time, there is still hope that women will have better rights than they do now.

Women in the military challenge stigmas of femininity, but women who take part in massacres, women terrorist and women who commit acts of cruelty go beyond any explanation of the ‘attributes of a woman’. Although not pictured as killers, and not accepted to be so (the same do not happen with men), women are also responsible for cold-blood acts of violence.

These killing normally result from a suspicion that one is engaging in acts that impinge on the family’s and society’s conservative views. This can include partaking in relationships outside of marriage, refusal of an arranged marriage, seeking divorce, homosexual acts, and being a victim of rape. The victims of honor killings are often murdered in the name of family honor for bringing shame and disgrace to the family. In many cases, these killings occur within a family unit— between father-daughter, husband-wife, brother-sister, etc. Since they occur so regularly, “most honor killings are not classified as such, are rarely prosecuted, or when prosecuted in the Muslim world, result in relatively light sentences” (Chesler, 2010).

That is why it is important to have an ethnocentric view of Honor Killings so that actions can be taken to stop it. Although Honor Killings are part of the Muslim tradition and culture, it does not mean that they should be accepted as just. As the world progresses and evolves, cultures and traditions must evolve with it; what has been seen as acceptable in the past, is no longer accepted by many cultures throughout the world. Viewing Honor Killings through a cultural relativist position could be detrimental to the women living under these conditions. Thousands of lives could be saved and these women could be given further opportunities to achieve the life they wish to live if people view Honor Killings as

Ahmed,Sidrah(2014) in his research paper tries to investigate the representation of muslim women's rights and integration by swestern media.Spencer,R and Chesler,P in their book remarked that in Islam the custom of Female genital mutilation,wife beating,child and arranged marriage ,polygamy,purdah,easy divorce for men,female sexual and domestic slavery,veiling,routine rape and gang rape and honor killing are more common then all other religions of the

Honour killing is a poem written by Imtiaz Dharker which depicts the struggles of women within countries in the middle-east that oppress women whether it be verbally or physically, and Dharker being a Pakistani woman expressed her views through this piece of work. An honour killing is the act of taking someone’s life who has disrespected themselves and their family, an example of this is a Pakistani woman who was shot by her family because she wanted to divorce the man she was with. The true difference between a western culture and a middle eastern culture can be shown in the fact that the Pakistani senate refused to condemn what happened to this woman and deemed it an honour killing. The poem is an outcry for freedom for woman who are being oppressed and kept down by cultural ideas within the countries which commit these acts.