Honour Killing: Glorification through Murder?

Abstract

Human Rights watch defines honour killings as of violence, usually murder, committed by male family members against female family members, who are perceived to have brought upon the family. A woman can be targeted by (individuals within) her family for a variety of reasons, including: refusing to enter into an arranged marriage, being the victim of a sexual assault, seeking a divorce - even from an abusive husband - or (allegedly) committing adultery. The mere perception that a woman has behaved in a specific way to dishonor her family, is sufficient to trigger an attack with the killers not even asked to corroborate their allegation. Honour killing is one of the manifestations of the Crimes of Honour which also encompasses, assault, confinement or imprisonment and interference with the choice in marriage such that the perpetrators instead of feeling ashamed of committing it, justify it as a measure of preservation of their family’s honour represented by the control of man over the woman. In other terms crimes of honour comprises of socio, economic and physical coercion, the physical coercion being killing the transgressor of the code of honour and community norms, social policing and collective decisions and acts of punishment. Most of the times the woman is killed when she is suspected of engaging in sexual relations with someone, adultery, premarital relationships, rape etc which as per the family's interpretation has defiled their honour. The men liked to be the one controlling the women mainly their sexual behaviour and also their social and economic resources and their property, community norms and social policing. According to the report of the Special Rapporteur submitted to the 58th session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (2002) concerning cultural practices in the family that reflect violence against women. The Rapporteur concluded that in some of the countries like the Argentina, Bangladesh, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Peru, Syria, Turkey, Venezuela and the Palestinian National Authority Honour killing can be used either as complete or a partial defense. It was found that even nagging was accepted as the cause of provocation for killing in the name of honour enabling the killer to use it as a defense. In this paper, the researcher shall discuss Honour killing being practiced in large number of countries with more than 5000 women being killed every year. The paper also shall put forth the various sections of the national legal codes of various countries that back such type of killing by allowing them to use honour killing as a complete or a partial defense for their gory crime. The paper shall highlight that how still the women are treated unequally in the society, forced to live under subjugation and seclusion within the rigid walls of community norms and societal values.