NEWS: Honor Killings Claim Thousands of Women

An honor killing is the murder of a female, usually a daughter, who has in some way shamed her family. Pre-marital sex and adulterous behavior are shameful to many Muslims, this type of killing makes that shame go away. It's estimated that 5000 women worldwide meet this end yearly, but that number could be higher.



The conference in Sweden is discussing what can prevent honor killings. I don't see what you can do that can prevent it. It's roots in religion go back hundreds of years and can't be reversed by a few nations putting their heads together in Sweden. Muslim religious leaders are the only ones that can help put an end to this horrifying practice.







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" Honor killings" what is it the middle ages still for these people? People that think this type of murder is OK are stuck a 1,000 years in the past.

I agree that people who do such a think are stuck in the past, but they are also homosidal psychotics. I could also say many worse things but I wont. I also agree that for anything to change it will be the spiritual leaders that will half to make the effort to change them.

They should Ban All Religions!

bodebliss
Well your opinion (ban all religons) does have a little bit of merrit. Orginised religon does tend to bread hatred and ignorance. I doubt there is any one around right now that would disagree with that. Given the recent world events.
For another view on organised religen, you could try reading the Heinlein books, if you have not already.

www.dccadv.org...

If you can blame "honor" killings on religion or backwards thinking, what excuse do american men have?

Nearly 1 in 3 adult women experience at least one physical assault by a partner during adulthood.
American Psychl. Ass'n, Violence and the Family: Report of the American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Violence and the Family (1996), p. 10.


28% of all annual violence against women is perpetrated by intimates.
Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report: National Crime Victimization Survey, Violence Against Women (NCJ-145325), January 1994.

Female homicide victims are more than twice as likely to have been killed by an intimate partner than are male homicide victims.
Bureau of Justice Statistics: Female Victims of Violent Crime, December, 1996.

For homicides in which the victim-killer relationship was known, 31% of female victims were killed by an intimate. 4% of male victims were killed by an intimate.
Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report: Sex Differences in Violent Victimization, 1994 (NCJ-164508), September, 1997, p. 1.

What is wrong with men?? It's not Iraqi's or Muslims or any other division you can think of. It's gender. Men hurt and kill women for any reason, or no reason, yet nothing is done about it. If this kind of violence were black on white or white on hispanic, it would be called a hate crime. But most people laugh about it, lie about it, or just don't think about it.

I know 99.9% of the men reading this will swear up & down that they've never hurt a women. But the statistics and my own experience and that of at least half the women I know, show that a lot of men are hurting women. You're blowing it, guys. Stop this attack on women in your own country, then speak out against it in other countries.

--Saerlaith

In far too many cases, the penalty for rape in Muslim countries is death -- of the victim, and sometimes the sentence is carried out by the rapist himself, in accordance with the sentence of a trial.

Not surprisingly, this is one of the reasons why rape tends to be grossly underreported in Muslim nations.

Fortunately, not all Muslim religious leaders agree with the concept of Honor Killings, but the traditions are not easy to overcome, and these shocking crimes against humanity therefore continue.

As for banning all religions, that has already been tried, but the replacement religion -- Marxism -- turned out to be worse than every other religion in human history combined, at least in terms of body count.


[edit on 12/6/2004 by Majic]

Originally posted by Saerlaith
You're blowing it, guys. Stop this attack on women in your own country, then speak out against it in other countries.

I am unable to find a rational link between your post and the topic.

The idea of ignoring honor killings because domestic violence occurs as well is morally unconscionable, and I ain't buying it. That's nothing more than bald misdirection.

What's your opinion regarding honor killings?


[edit on 12/6/2004 by Majic]

Saerlaith,

Please don't tar every man with that brush!

I do something that makes woman think twice about arguing w/ me .

I walk away.

What about that scandal some time ago , where a man offered to kill women over the web and he had women lining up to be killed.

I have seen woman who did not feel they were loved unless their man slapped them around a bit.

What gives w/ that?

PS: we live in a violent society ,duh. Men are 3x more likely to be killed , and 5x more likely to be beat up.



[edit on 12/6/2004 by bodebliss]

Just like any other religious book it would seem what is being practiced is not what is actually written in the Quran.

O you who believe! Stand out firmly for justice as a witness to Allah, even against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be (against) rich or poor. For Allah can best protect both. Follow not the lust (of your hearts), lest ye swerve, and if ye distort (justice) or decline to do justice, verily, Allah is well acquainted with all that ye do. (An-Nisa 4:135).

In addition, narrated Ibn Abbas (Volume 3, Book 48, Number 837; The Islamic Page)

Hilal bin Umaiya accused his wife before the Prophet of committing illegal sexual intercourse with Sharik bin Sahma.' The Prophet said, "Produce a proof, or else you would get the legal punishment (by being lashed) on your back." Hilal said, "O Allah's Apostle! If anyone of us saw another man over his wife, would he go to search for a proof." The Prophet went on saying, "Produce a proof or else you would get the legal punishment (by being lashed) on your back." The Prophet then mentioned the narration of Lian (as in the Holy Book).

Simply stated a woman (or man) cannot be convicted of adultery without substantial proof.

Few of the Honor Killings we read about today are carried out based on the unbiased testimony of 4 witnesses required by the Quran. In most cases it is a pissed off family member who disapproves of something a woman has done or perceived to have done. IMO Honor Killings now appear to a melding of Quran and Cultural beliefs - unfortunately reinforced in many cases by the some religious leaders.

I have no idea what can be done to prevent such atrocities. Most midde-eastern countries still have laws protecting the perpetrators or ignore the problem altogether. Jordan has been trying to educate it's population with very mixed results.

An excellent article on Honor Killings (which I referenced in the above quote) can be found here


B.




[edit on 12/6/04 by Bleys]

These types of things are very common in places like Saudi Arabia. If a foreigner happens to be in the right place at the wrong time(ie during an execution) the crowd will push the foreigner to the front of the crowd so the westerner will have a front row view as well as a rock to throw(and you are expected to throw at least one rock during the execution of an adultress, you just not expected to hit) Basically to them it is their Dark Ages. As for how to stop it, I don't really see a way other then mass occupation and policing, and we all know how well that turned out last time...

Honour Killings are not only a muslim thing, certainly not historically and I don't beleive it is so even to this day. It should be obvious also that this is a tradition that extends to a time -before- islam existed, and, rather than being something necessary for islam, is rather a disgusting, repugnant, and shameful hold over.

Notice however the extremes that even western parents would go to invloving the 'honour' of their daughters. Usually they won't kill her, but they're usually rather ready to kill the man, men, fraternity, involved.

Amoung the ancient hebrews, supposedly, there was a difference between a woman being raped in the wilderness and in the city. In the wild, no one could hear her scream for help, so it was rape. In the city, she could've called someone to stop it, so she's an adulterer.

Heck even today, certainly up til recent decades, woman who -were- raped and became pregnant were locked away, all the worse if they weren't raped.

The honour killing portion is generally -dead- in civilized society, western, eastern, whatever, but the -idea- behind it, certainly that the -family's - honour is damaged by their naive daughter's actions, stems from this sick old tradition and is -still- kept alive.

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
" Honor killings" what is it the middle ages still for these people? People that think this type of murder is OK are stuck a 1,000 years in the past.

Precisely. Islamic society is, literally, backwards. Groups like the taliban and the wahabbists, they're like, mean amish or something.

Originally posted by bodebliss
Saerlaith,

Please don't tar every man with that brush!

I do something that makes woman think twice about arguing w/ me .

I walk away.

What about that scandal some time ago , where a man offered to kill women over the web and he had women lining up to be killed.

I have seen woman who did not feel they were loved unless their man slapped them around a bit.

What gives w/ that?

Props to you for knowing when to walk away. I'm not tarring every man with anything. The men out there perpetrating crimes against women know who they are, and there are a lot.

As for why some women tolerate and even expect abuse, most of it is what they are trained to accept. When boys are raised in abusive households, they tend to grow up abusers. They learn that is a "normal" behavior. Men abuse, women submit. When girls are raised in an abusive household, they learn that is the "normal" interaction between men and women. Mommy & daddy love each other (or at least say they do) so the abuse and acceptance of it must be normal. So the kids grow up doing the same thing because it's what they learned "love" is.

Any man hurting women needs to be stopped and dealt with appropriately. Any woman thinking abuse is normal or acceptable needs serious mental help. The sad thing is, by the time cops or family are aware of a problem, it's usually too late to break the pattern. That's why so many women keep going back to an abuser, until they end up dead.

It's hard enough to get free of this crap in a country with more help available. In more male dominated countries, women can't even leave the house to get help. And if they could, they just get sent back "home". Male/female relationships need to be more about partners than property. It's a messed up mindset that religion and culture keep reinforcing, worldwide, in different degrees.

--Saerlaith

How many men die because of Honor killings?

Originally posted by sardion2000
I don't really see a way other then mass occupation and policing, and we all know how well that turned out last time...

Its doubtful that such would result -directly- in a modernized liberal society. Its certainly not how it worked for europ.e Infact invasion and occupation resulted in the destruction of a classical and (more or less) liberal society. What this geopoltiical re-alignment that Bush and others are going forward with -can- do tho is create a democractic society, one that can result in the same sort of effects that increased democracy had in europe.

Nygdan, I totally agree with you. It's just right now as we speak the things going down in the Arab world just seem to keep going round and round, over and over again, and I don't see any hope in stabilising it permantly, I was only commenting that the only way that could achieve "some" success would be occupation, allthough I did say after that "we all know how that turn out last time"EDIT--and I should have added in the Middle East in the 18th Century-- EDIT. I for one believe we should leave em alone, but the thing is some of them dont want to leave us alone so we can't do nothing. Well one thing we can do is get off Oil but with the current status-quo to protect I do not see that happening in the next 5 years unfortunetly BTW It can be done in 5 years, the US has retooled their entire economy in less time before. I guess greed is what rules now....

[edit on 6-12-2004 by sardion2000]

Originally posted by bodebliss
How many men die because of Honor killings?

That would be intersting to know. Do muslim religious laws punish men for sexual infractions the same way they do women?

I know that young women have been killed for talking to young men. The assumption being that the women are making dates and are thus some kind of prostitute. Doing that brings great dishonor on the males of the family, as it shows they can't control their female property, and the women are tainted and not marriageable. The reason Saudi women aren't allowed to drive is the fear they will use the privacy of a car to meet men. I've read accounts of honor killings being carried out by wrapping women in heavy chains and throwing them in the family's swimming pool.

I know the penalties for adultery are pretty harsh for both genders. But I haven't heard anything about men being killed for talking to women, etc. You're talking about countries where up until recently, girl babies weren't even registered at birth. Non-citizens to be used and killed at will. I really doubt men get treated the same, but anything is possible.

--Saerlaith

If a common man in Saudi talks to a Woman whos family is higher classwise then there could be major penalities, allthough they usually just behead those people. Adultresses get stoned to death. Thieves get thier hands cut off. And as for the actuall numbers I doubt you will be able to find out cuz usually these things happen locally, with little to no oversight.

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
" Honor killings" what is it the middle ages still for these people? People that think this type of murder is OK are stuck a 1,000 years in the past.

This is what religion does to people. Makes them de-evolve and incredibly stupid...