’These brutal, pre-meditated acts of violence are anything but honourable
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18/12/2009 Aisha Gill: Commentary
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Honour killings are anything but honourable. They are brutal, premeditated acts of violence perpetrated by the very people who are supposed to protect the victim from harm. The United Nations Population Fund estimates that 5,000 women are killed in the name of honour worldwide each year, at least 1,000 in Pakistan.
The United Nations Development Fund for Women says that 22 women in India are killed every day in dowry-related murders, and in South Africa a woman is killed every six hours by a close family member or partner.
Asma Jahangir, a United Nations special adviser, gave a report to the Commission on Human Rights in 2000. It said: “The perpetrators of these crimes are mostly male family members of the murdered women who go unpunished or receive reduced sentences on the justification of having murdered to defend their misconceived notions of family honour.”
She noted that killings had been reported in Bangladesh, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Sweden, Turkey, Uganda and the United Kingdom.
Related Links
‘I ask that my father end the nightmares’
Woman howls at father over ’honour killing’
There are no official statistics on “honour” killings in Britain but a recent survey of cases that received coverage in the media showed that from 1998 to 2007 an average of 12 cases were investigated each year.
Many victims of “honour” killings are abducted. They disappear and are never reported missing. In Kurdish or South Asian communities, the silence that surrounds violence against women means that many crimes go unrecorded; either that or they are reported long afterwards, by which time victims may have suffered repeated abuse, or, as in the case of Tulay Goren, been murdered.
Victims seldom go to the police, but they often seek help from the health service or domestic violence charities. Professionals in these organisations are urging the Government to understand that preventing honour-based violence requires a change in the beliefs and practices that give rise to this type of violence in the first place.
Dr Aisha Gill is a senior lecturer in criminology at Roehampton University and an expert on honour killings
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