Dishonorable deeds

Nermeen Murad

This week, a father killed his daughter in Sweimeh by stabbing her 16 times with a sword after he apparently received a doctor’s confirmation she was pregnant. This is the latest episode of what has come to be called as “honor crimes.”

The Information and Research Centre-King Hussein Foundation (IRC), an action and public policy research centre, has conducted an extensive study into the so-called honor crimes in Jordan in partnership with the Mafraq Centre for Development, Economic Research and Analysis and the Jordan Centre for Social Research. The study primarily aimed to pinpoint and analyze the economic indicators linked to the crime against a backdrop of religious, social and cultural frameworks.

One of the most important findings of the research - which looked into the 102 official cases of so-called honor crimes in Jordan and which took place between the year 2000 and February of 2009 - is that there was a strong correlation between the combination of low income, low educational attainment, living in poverty pockets and unemployment, on the one hand, and the increased possibility of committing the crime or becoming the victim of crime. In fact, preliminary numbers show that in 66 per cent of the cases the perpetrator was considered to be poor.

Critics of the study worried this would mean that the researchers were trying to say that poor people are more likely to be murderers or that rich people don’t kill, which is not the case. The researchers arrived at a finding that gave clear socio-economic results and links: in the absence of inputs that raise one’s social standing, such as high educational attainment, prestigious work position and high income, combined with increased economic burdens, such as marriage and children, the perception and pressure of society, specifically the concept of honor takes on an exaggerated value.

What the study also clearly shows is that in many cases, the perpetrators of the crime fall under pressure to kill their female relatives from other family members and the immediate society. In the much-maligned killing of a 17-year-old girl earlier this year by her father and two brothers, who beat her for two hours with water hoses, the main motive behind the father’s fury was that it was her uncle who brought her to him and highlighted her “sin.”

In an interview with the IRC researchers, the father said he felt his brother brought her to him “to slight me; he wanted to rub my face in it”. And in an indicative statement, the father continued: “Had he [the uncle] been a wise man, he wouldn’t have brought her to me and taunted me.”

Poverty, ignorance, low education levels and unemployment are all economic and societal ills that breed and produce many other problems. In a patriarchal society where the concept of honor is now synonymous with the behavior of female relatives rather than the performance of the individual, regardless of sex, these ills more often than not affect the status of women and their welfare.

Some critics of the work on honor killings have become embroiled in the righteousness of the behavior of women, the source of the funding of the project and Western values versus Arab/Muslim values, while the issue at hand is the sanctity of human life, the rule of law and the rejection of violence against women in any of its forms.

Some fear that Jordan is building a bad reputation internationally because of the open discussions over this crime. Again, this is not true, as the numbers show that while all murders and deaths are unnecessary, 102 cases in just over eight years is not an epidemic.

It is Jordan’s commitment to transparency over this issue that has earned it the international respect it deserves for dealing with its problems openly. This cannot be misconstrued as “hanging one’s dirty laundry”, as some would claim.

The message that some in our society have forced on these families and practitioners in the field is that our religion and culture require men to protect and safeguard the honor of their female relatives and therefore they have the right to take action, including murder, to that end.

In the IRC interviews with 31 perpetrators currently held in detention centers, each and every single one of them said they knew the crime they committed was against the teachings of Islam, but that did not deter them from committing it. Almost all of them worried about how society will judge them if they didn’t stand up and defended their so-called honor; a large percentage believed that their families were not negatively impacted by the crime and some even claimed elevated status among family members and neighbors, etc.

Therefore, one should not be surprised to see the public display of the killing and the tacit approval of the onlookers who did not stop a man from killing his daughter on a main road and in broad daylight this week. The father, in this case, sought to remove the blemish on his family’s honor by killing his daughter brutally and mercilessly. The society in this poverty pocket approved of his action and therefore watched while he stabbed her 16 times. This man now has gained hero status in the society which has redefined honor.

The girl is dead. An innocent unborn child is dead. The father of the girl is a hero. The father of the unborn child is unknown and not accountable. The family honors is intact. Society approves. The concept of honor continues to be dishonored.