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On honor homicides
EFLIâm so pissed by this Iâm almost at a loss for words. Tracking a story about the persistence of honor killings in Jordan involves preliminary negotiations over tiny glasses of sugary tea overwhelmed with fresh mint leaves. It involves tacit and mutual acknowledgment of the sensitivity of the issue, between sips and polite conversation. And it involves discreet assurances that introducing a foreign reporter into a segment of Jordanian society that approves of the murder of girls and women accused of dishonoring their families will not result in a small-scale clash of civilizations. Only after being satisfied on these points does Inam Asha, a driven Amman social worker and womenâs rights advocate, fix a time and location -- on the other side of town, in a rundown neighborhood that has probably never seen better days. Unlike its more upscale, Westernized counterpart, east Amman -- a mixed neighborhood populated by both East Bankers and Palestinian refugees -- resembles another planet: poor, resentful and conservative. Traffic is heavy in the narrow streets of Jebal Manara as the late afternoon sun beats down and pollution from the line of cars snaking down the street gathers into an ethereal haze. Brightly colored Arabic signs dot the main streets, but the stores emit an air of defeat, as if tired from staving off deepening poverty. Upon closer inspection, the commercial heart of Jebal Manara reveals little in the way of social activities. There are no movie theaters and few restaurants. Only men frequent the few shabby coffee shops, smoking flavored tobacco through water pipes as they watch the latest setbacks in the Arab world on satellite television. The women who walk the streets are al-most invariably covered, the only thing dis-tinguishing them is to what extent. Some wear headscarves, tightly pinned under their chins so not a stray hair falls out of place. Most wear a loose, long-sleeved jilbab reaching from the neck to the feet. A few wear head-to-toe black, with a black mesh veil completely covering their faces and gloves on their hands. Worn-out sandals peek out from under the black gowns with each step. In the industrial area, car garages and spare parts shops line one of the side streets. As the men work to bring their cus-tomersâ sputtering vehicles back to life, a narrow steel door between two garages opens to the small indoor courtyard of the home of Um Khalid. A group of eight local women ranging from 20 to 70 years old, assembled by Inam Asha to meet me, sit on mattresses lining the threadbare but spotless living room beyond. The cement walls are devoid of ornamentation, with the exception of a few pieces of framed embroidery. One hand-stitched piece reads "God bless our home" in English. The women, meanwhile, talk in rough Palestinian dialects about the conservative social code by which they continue to live. By Western standards, at least one aspect of the code is difficult to fathom -- that girls and women should be killed for shaming their families. Perhaps most surprising, though, is how many women of precisely the social stratum most affected by the phenomenon sanction honor killings. Grass-roots campaigning by womenâs rights activists and the few men on the far liberal side of the political spectrum has brought the issue of honor killings to the foreground, but the effort lacks widespread popular or government support. Whatâs more, temporary laws aimed at improving womenâs rights and pertaining to honor killings in particular, enacted by King Abdullah and approved by his cabinet over the past two years while parliament was dissolved, have been rejected twice in the space of a few weeks by the newly elected Lower House. In a country where tribal laws can carry more weight than those of the government, change has been slow in coming. The women of Jebal Manara, clad in traditional Palestinian embroidered dresses harking back to their native Jaffa, sheer headscarves wrapped loosely around their faces, cluck disapprovingly of a local honor killing a few years back when a teenage girlâs mother and brother shot her to death for running away from extreme physical and emotional abuse. But a girl who elopes? Or gets pregnant out of wedlock? "She deserves it," says Um Khalid, an older woman with crackling brown eyes and a bright yellow jalabiya, without pausing to consider otherwise. "Her behavior affects the entire family. In this case, she has to die," says another woman in her 30s, leaning against a pillow. In the eyes of this traditional, close-knit and socially conservative society, bringing shame on the family could lead to ostracism. That in itself is a virtual death sentence for the generations remaining in the same houses within the same social circles. "Women are harsher than men on this issue," explains Asha, the social worker. They have to distance themselves publicly from the shameful behavior "to avoid being associated with it." Otherwise "no one would marry any girls in the family," says one girl, as she serves more sweet tea laden with mint. Killing the deviant, the women argue, redeems the familyâs honor, allowing it to return to the social circle, reputation intact or even enhanced. Not in Godâs eyes it doesnât. Um Khalid, the most vocal of the group, is quick to point out that a girlâs scandalous behavior does not necessarily merit death. The problem arises, she says, when other people begin to find out. "If the immediate family knows about an affair, maybe they can cover it up and marry her off. But if others start to talk, they may feel they have no alternative but to kill her." Officially, around 25 girls and women die every year in Jordan at the hands of their relatives in the name of family honor, or sharaf. That figure does not include unreported incidents; Asha also points to tens of so-called suicides that include an unknown number of honor killings being covered up. In 75 per cent of the cases the killer is the womanâs brother. So much for applied family loyalty. In theory, but not in practice. More at article Posted by: Katz 2003-09-22 |
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