When 18-year-old Maha decided that she wanted to quit her family’s prostitution ring, her brother killed her and claimed it was to “cleanse” the family’s honor.
Maha is one of hundreds, if not thousands, of women in Jordan and elsewhere who rights groups say are killed every year by their male relatives in so-called honor crimes for “sullying” the reputation of their families.
The UN has reported such crimes in Brazil, Britain, Ecuador, India, Israel, Italy, Sweden and Uganda as well as in Muslim nations such as Morocco, Pakistan and Turkey.
Accurate figures on such killings are hard to come by because they often go unreported.
In Jordan, between 15 and 20 women are murdered annually in the name of “honor” and at least eight such killings have been reported so far this year, Jordanian authorities said. Last year 17 such murders were recorded.
But the label “honor killings” can be misleading.
Judges, lawyers, activists and experts agree that in most cases men exploit lenient laws and social misconceptions about women to murder them for inheritance, settling family feuds or to hide other crimes.
“Maha did not want to continue to prostitute herself, so her brother killed her,” said Israa Tawalbeh, Jordan’s first woman coroner.
Tawalbeh said Maha’s brother was a drug addict with a criminal record and ran the family’s prostitution ring.
“After killing his sister, he turned himself in and claimed that he murdered her to cleanse the family’s honor. Of course, forensic examination proved that she worked in prostitution, and the brother was sentenced to two years in prison,” she said.
In another case a few years ago, a man beat his 16-year-old daughter to death, claiming she was pregnant. Investigations, however, proved that he had molested the girl.
Judge Jehad Oteibi, spokesman for the Judiciary Council, said court records show that many “honor killings” are committed for reasons related to inheritance. Under Shariah-based laws in Jordan, female heirs are entitled to an inheritance, even though it is half of what male heirs receive.
“Forensic tests prove that a lot of victims were virgins, which show that there are other motives behind the killings,” Oteibi said.
Human Rights Watch says 95 percent of women killed in 1997 in Jordan in alleged honor killings were later proved to be innocent.
“Many women are forced to give up their rights or face death. Their families might kill them and allege it is related to honor and not money,” Oteibi said.
He said mothers testify against their daughters to protect their sons or husbands.
“Ignorance and poverty is a deadly mix,” the judge said.
University of Jordan sociologist Seri Nasser blamed the legal system.
“Most of the judges are males who use their powers to reduce the sentence,” Nasser said.
Perpetrators get reduced sentences as parliament has refused to reform the penal code to ensure harsher sentences, despite campaigns by local and international human rights activists.
According to Article 340 of the penal code, a defendant who “surprises his wife or any close female relative” in an act of adultery or fornication may invoke a defense of “crime of honor” should they murder the woman.
For women, “a wife who surprises her husband in the crime of adultery or in an unlawful bed in the marital home” may invoke a similar defense — though interestingly, there are no reports or any official figures on any “honor” killings of men in Jordan.
Qaddumi insisted along with other experts that Islam prohibits such crimes and that the problem is not “purely Jordanian.”
“To stop the killing of women Article 340 should be scrapped. I think Islamic Shariah law should be applied,” she said.
Under Shariah law, which prohibits premarital sex, “punishment for adultery or fornication can’t be enforced unless there is a confession by the culprit or a testimony of four reliable, sane and adult eyewitnesses who each saw the process of sexual intercourse.”
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