“People do not interfere when it comes to the so-called honour killing, because they believe that women are a private property for men and for the family, and there is a permissiveness and violent societal complicity with this idea.”
-Lawyer Azza Soliman, president of the Board of Trustees of the Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance. [1]
Honour crimes gather everything women fought throughout history, including extreme injustice against women, unfairness in ruling and punishment, community silence on the usurpation of rights, and unjust patriarchal laws that do not support women’s rights. In this article, we will shed a light on some aspects of this issue, hoping to give you the momentum to eradicate this social phenomenon.
The term “honour crime” is used to describe the crime committed by the male against the female under the pretext of defending the honour of the family, or his own. This male is often a relative of the female, but some cases were recorded in which there was no connection between the perpetrator and the victim, and suspicion of honour piercing is enough to be the trigger for this crime.
In most cases, the shame is “washed away” at the woman’s expense only, without causing any harm to her supposed partner-in-crime. The method of killing differs between slaughtering or strangling, shooting, and other heinous means such as burying alive or stoning, and the crime may be committed openly in front of people’s eyes or it can happen secretly and keep under wraps.
Also read: What is homelessness and how can it be limited?
The duels that happened between two men and often ended in the death of one of them aimed at defending honour, and the crime of killing a woman out of moral motive represented the safe alternative to defending honour. [1]
Honour, according to several sources: is the individual’s social status and the respect they enjoy, including qualities such as moral nobility, keeping promises, keeping covenants, defending the weak, and preserving the dignity of the country and servants.
This word has a strong impact on the souls in all societies, especially the Eastern ones, and as evidence of the effect of the term “honour crime,” we note that bystanders do not interfere when an honour crime is committed publicly once the offender declares that the motive is “honour,” even if the victim is a male.
In these cases, we note a broad social acceptance that sometimes extends to include state agencies, and the penal laws in some Arab countries still grant a lenient sentence to perpetrators of honour crimes. [1]
In Syria, the majority of efforts to combat this type of crime were focused on the legal side, and Rima Fleihan, a human rights activist, indicated that the law facilitates the commission of crimes of this kind, while benefiting from the mitigation of the sentence. In 2005, the Syrian Women’s Observatory launched a campaign against honour killings with the aim of repealing Article 548 of the Syrian Penal Code and treating killers with this excuse – the honour excuse – as killers with any other excuse, without the possibility of prior benefit from this law. [2]
To clarify; this is an excerpt from Article 548, which states that “the perpetrator of murder or injury benefits from a mitigating excuse if he surprises his spouse, one of his ascendants, or descendants in a suspicious situation with another.” Thanks to continuous Syrian efforts, conferences and repeated campaigns, Law No. 2 was issued in 2020 to abolish Article 548 of the Syrian Penal Code. [3]
Efforts are still ongoing to counter this social acceptance and the prevailing cultural custom of the permissibility of this type of violence applied to women.
Amending the laws and regulations that protect the perpetrator in such crimes is an indispensable step on the way to eliminating this phenomenon, but it alone is not enough, because honour as a concept has a very dear place among members of society, which made it the easiest accusation under which many crimes against women are committed. Therefore, it is necessary to separate them, in order to avoid social acceptance of crimes that are disguised under the pretext of dishonour washing.
It is even more necessary when crimes are committed based on suspicion only, under the slogan “Kill her then confirm” [1], especially during the current era with the availability of technology means that, despite its many benefits, can be used to discredit an innocent girl, which leads her life within in such societies, that are still receptive to the crime of shame washing, to an end.
Murder is a crime that has its elements such as the offender, the victim, the motive, the trial, and the punishment. Here we pause and ask ourselves: When it is the case of a female victim and the apparent motive is an honour, why would the rules of the trial and the punishment change? and instead of punishing the offender, his courage for washing away his shame would be praised?
In conclusion, we, at Uplifting Syrian Woman Initiative, seek to create a safe space for women to express their problems and offer the best solution available, that is why we encourage women and girls who are subjected to any kind of threat or injustice to benefit from the services provided by our initiative, hoping that we, as women, could live safely within this society.
♀️ Uplifting Syrian Women Initiative aims at sustainable peace building in Syria through targeting women and providing them with free online courses, workshops, discussion sessions and trainings, with a view to achieving the goals of Gender Equality, Quality Education and Decent Work and Economic Growth, which all fall into the interest of society as a whole and serve the purpose of rebuilding it.
References:
[1] BBC News
[3] SANA