Heshu Yones and Nuziat Khan had a lot in common. Both fought against dominating men. Both ended up dead. Heshu, 16, a student from west London, had her throat cut by her father in October last year after he discovered she had been dating a man from outside their Kurdish Muslim culture. Abdalla Yones had become so "disgusted and distressed" by his daughter's Westernized ways that he stabbed her 11 times and left her to bleed to death before trying to kill himself.
He began a life sentence for murder earlier this week.
ILLUSTRATION: MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
For Khan's family, Yones's conviction was a painful reminder of how far there is to go in their own fight for justice. Khan was found strangled to death in her house in south London in August 2001. Her husband, Iqbal Zafar, remains on Scotland Yard's (London's Metropolitan Police) most-wanted list in connection with her murder and is believed to have fled to Pakistan.
Khan's family claim she was killed in the name of honor after she asked for a divorce because she felt unable to take any more abuse.
In traditional Pakistani communities, divorce is considered to bring shame upon a family.
"He had been banned from the house after she asked for a divorce but he would still come round begging for forgiveness and asking for money," said Javid Hamid, Khan's cousin.
"Sometimes she would be so scared that she would let him in and give him what he wanted just so that he would go away," Hamid said.
One day she went to the mosque with her kids after school and walked back on her own with the youngest girl, aged three. The next day she was found beaten and strangled inside the house. The police believe the toddler was in the house when she was murdered. The other children, aged 10 and 11, are thought to have come back shortly after she was attacked.
The family believe Zafir took the three girls away and asked a friend to look after them, saying he had to go to Bradford to get the car fixed. He never came back. The body wasn't found until the next day when Khan's 15-year-old son came back from staying with relatives and raised the alarm.
"I think the police are sure who committed the crime," Hamid said. "Why would he run away? I think a lot of the family are resigned to the fact that nothing will ever be done. He is in Pakistan and unless he comes back here we can't do anything. We have presented lots of evidence but it comes back to the same argument -- there is no extradition treaty and that's the end of it."
Commander Andy Baker, head of the Metropolitan Police's serious crime directorate, said: "We do believe this murder to be one of a similar nature to Heshu Yones. We are looking for her husband in order to put this to him and we will be seeking information from anyone who knows where he is."
In 2000, a UN report estimated that, worldwide, 5,000 women a year -- more than 13 a day -- die because they are deemed to have brought shame on their families or communities.
Scotland Yard believes there have been at least 12 such murders in different communities in the UK within the past year. But this is just the tip of the iceberg, detectives say, as numerous lesser acts of violence linked to the notion of honor are committed every year.
The Metropolitan Police has now set up a task force in a bid to increase understanding and awareness of this complex cultural issue but it is too late for women like Yones and Khan.
Baker said there are several reasons why such cases have proved difficult to investigate.
"Part of it has been our ignorance and lack of understanding of the motive, and that is why we need to learn so much about it, but there is also the problem of the silence within communities about what is going on," he said.
He said that Yones suffered "very significant physical abuse" in the months leading up to the killing, but it was never reported to the police.
"We've got to stop it, we can prevent these murders," he said.
There were certainly people who had tried to protect Abdalla Yones, who could be investigated on suspicion of perverting the course of justice, he said.
"We are completely satisified that some members of the community, or his friends, tried to assist him in that cover-up. It's not about one person committing the murder, it's about the few that acknowledge it and support it and are involved in it," he said.
"Anyone who committed this, or commits any other murder, will be thoroughly investigated and brought before the courts. We will not tolerate it. Nor should any community. It is murder. There is no excuse. Full stop," he said.
In Khan's case, the silence of the community -- her husband is thought to be in the outskirts of Islamabad -- has been instrumental in ensuring he has not been found. Hamid said the family has gone to great lengths to track him down.
"We think he is in Pakistan being looked after by family. Neighbors may have seen him but no one would be willing to put it on the record because most are in some way related," he said.
Hamid said Khan initially kept quiet about the beatings because she knew it would dishonor her husband if she told anyone, but after the birth of her fourth child she could take it no longer.
Her murder, he said, is best described as domestic violence with an element of honor woven in.
"If I look at it from our family's point of view, they would say it was an honor killing. The implications in terms of his family honor would have seemed huge," Hamid said.
"His name would have been mud if he had been divorced. It is very difficult to explain how overwhelming that feeling of shame can be in close-knit communities," he said.
But he adds that the definition of honor is extremely wide and there is a danger that it could be used as an excuse for a host of evils.
"There are instances when people do terrible things to each other in the name of so-called honor when it is actually because they don't get on or see it as a means of control. Until there is a clear definition it can be used to try and justify anything. It is an easy excuse for a lot of things and unless we speak out about it now then these things will carry on," he said.
Hannana Siddiqui, coordinator of the women's rights group Southall Black Sisters, said it is important to recognize that honor is being used as a pretext for all sorts of unacceptable behavior.
"For us, the concept of honor is being used as justification or mitigation for violence. It can often be used to judge women's sexual conduct or just general behavior like refusing to be obedient, regardless of the reasons why they might be refusing. The consequences for women can be anything from social ostracism and harassment to violence and, in a few cases, murder," she said.
Siddiqui said it is often difficult to tell whether a murder has been motivated by "honor." But the notion has been used many times as a justification. In 1999, Shakeela Naz was jailed for life along with her son, Shazad, for the murder of the teenage daughter they believed had insulted the honor of their family with an adulterous pregnancy.
Rukhsana Naz, 19, had hoped for a divorce from her husband -- whom she had seen only twice since her arranged marriage at 15 -- so that she could marry her lover. When she refused to have an abortion, she was invited to a family dinner in Derby. There, seven months pregnant, she was strangled by her brother with a piece of plastic flex while her mother held her down.
In June 1995, Tasleem Begum, 20, was killed by her brother-in- law, Shabir Hussain. He ran her over in his car, reversed over her body and sped forward once more, crushing her three times. She had been married to an older cousin who had gone to live in Pakistan for four years. She then fell in love with a married Asian man she had met while working in a supermarket in Bradford, West Yorkshire.
Hussain was not just Tasleem's brother-in-law -- he was also her first cousin. Their intricate web of kinship was knotted even more tightly by marriages between their siblings. He believed that family honor was worth more than Tasleem's life.
At his trial in October 1996, he pleaded not guilty, but was convicted of murder on circumstantial and witness evidence. He was given a life sentence but appealed immediately and was later granted a retrial on the grounds that he had been falsely identified. During its course, in 1998, he changed his plea from not guilty to guilty due to provocation. His sentence was cut to six and a half years for manslaughter.
The short prison term -- and the recognition of provocation, and implicitly, cultural factors in the crime -- was attacked by many women's groups including the Southall Black Sisters.
"Cultural defenses which use notions of honor to justify murder or other offences of domestic violence have been accepted by the courts which has led to differential treatment of black and minority women and a system colluding with that justification," Siddiqui said. "These kinds of cultural defense should not override the human rights of women."
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