Nuran Uca never made it to 61 Aydin Arslan Street. If she had gone to the colourful two-storey building, climbed its narrow stairwell, walked down a corridor and sat in the plump brown armchair that so many other women had used, she might be alive today. There, with counsellors from the Kam-er support group, she could have talked about the “crime” of falling in love with a man she could never marry.

Instead, on June 14 the Kurdish woman succumbed to the phenomenon that is claiming lives in this Kurdish area of south-east Anatolia: she hanged herself in the bathroom of her home.

“She was just 25 but it was especially tragic because both were teachers, educated people,” said Remziye Tural at Kam-er, the women’s organisation that has become a lifeline in Turkey’s poor south-east for those who face death because of a perception of dishonour. “She was modern and wore tight clothes – which is why his family rejected her. She was banned by her parents from seeing or speaking to him, and then they stopped her leaving the house. In the end the pressure was too much.”

Despite the searing heat, Ms Tural is dressed for work in a pink T-shirt, combat trousers and boots.

On the streets of Batman, a city with a population of 250,000, an alarming number are harbouring suicidal thoughts, and acting on them.

Across Turkey, men are twice as likely as women to take their own lives, but, defying that trend, more than 300 women in Batman have attempted suicide since 2001. Seven women died in almost identical copy-cat deaths in one month alone.

The rising number of suicides has brought schoolgirls marching in protest to Batman’s cemetery crying “stop the violence”, a courageous act given the conservative mores in Batman.

“The numbers are increasing,” said Ms Tural. “By June this year, 19 had tried to take their lives and most were successful. That’s just in Batman. All over, in villages and towns, young girls are committing suicide.”

There were those who had jumped into the River Tigris, others who had fallen off rooftops or cut their wrists, and some, like Nuran Uca, who had opted to end their lives abruptly as they were doing chores around the house.

Invariably, survivors said it was their kader, or destiny, to meet such an end.

But women’s groups and human rights advocates believe the suicides are tantamount to murder. Stories have emerged of girls as young as 12 being locked in rooms for days with rope, poison or a pistol.

“There’s a lot of evidence to suggest that these are, in fact, ‘honour killings’ passed off as suicides – that these girls are being forced to take their own lives,” said Aytekin Sir, a psychiatrist who has studied the practice. There is no evidence that Nuran Uca’s family forced their daughter to kill herself.

Last year, Yakin Erturk, a special UN envoy, arrived at the same conclusion, saying “honour suicides” had clearly begun to replace “honour killings”, with the deaths increasingly being disguised as accidents.

Death sentences

For a long time the potent forces of fear and shame in the communities stopped young women visiting the Kam-er centre on Aydin Arlsan Street. But recently at least four girls a day have gone there, often in fear of death sentences issued by their fathers and brothers for infractions perceived to have brought shame on their families.

Nearly one-fifth of those who walked through the doors of the organisation since it started up in 1997 complained of threats from their families. Some had received text messages on their mobile phones saying typically: “You have blackened our name. Kill yourself or we will kill you.”

According to Vildan Aycicek, at the organisation’s headquarters in the city of Diyarbakir, west of Batman: “Women apply to us when they think they cannot survive the violence any longer. Most are illiterate and don’t know their legal rights. If they do, they have no idea how to use them.”

There had, she said, been cases of Kurdish and Turkish women calling Kam-er’s hotline from Britain and other countries saying they also feared for their lives. Worldwide, the numbers of “honour killings” are notoriously difficult to estimate. But in Turkey the vengeful practice is cited by academics as the cause of death for hundreds of women each year – far above the official annual figure of 70. Sometimes adultery, or a woman’s desire for divorce, prompts an all-male “family council” to order a killing.

But the list of “offences” is long: rape, incest, pregnancy brought on by both, a girl ringing into a radio chat show, exchanging eye contact with a boy or wearing a skimpy shirt. Sometimes accusations are no more than rumours.

One villager near Diyarbakir explained the attitude of his home area. “Without rules you have chaos,” said Seyikan Arslan. “If my sister or my mother made a mistake we [men] would have to make it right. They would have to pay to cleanse our honour.”

Few places demonstrate the clash in Turkey between east and west, between tradition and modernity, better than the towns of Anatolia. Both Diyarbakir and Batman, the site of Turkey’s first oil refinery, have seen a surge in migration from desperately poor rural areas.

The culture clash has played a large part in exacerbating tensions within families and particularly between patriarchal fathers and their female offspring. “Migration is behind the big rise in honour and suicide killings,” said Dr Sir, whose research found that support for the deaths far outstripped other popular penalties such as a woman having her nose sliced off or head shaved.

European hopes

Ironically, the suicides have also been blamed on Turkey’s efforts to stop “honour crimes”. With Ankara’s reforming Islamic-rooted government determined to enter the EU, it has toughened laws against the killings. Lenient sentences for those who cite provocation as a mitigating factor are no longer possible. So, to save men from a life in prison, experts believe families are instead forcing women to kill themselves.

“Often there is about two months between a killing being ordered and it taking place. That gives us time to save a woman,” said Ms Aycicek, mentioning the “intervention” teams of activists, police, imams and government officials set up to tackle the practice.

Yet, despite these measures, some deny the prevalence of this revenge.

“A lot of this talk about honour killings is aimed at showing Kurds as primitive and savage,” said Bawer Ucaman, at Diyarbakir’s chamber of commerce.

Absent from the campaign in Batman has been the mayor, Huseyin Kalkan, who was awarded damages by DC Comics after a lawsuit over the use of his town’s name for the superhero Batman. That money, activists point out, could be used to save women like Nuran Uca.

The Guardian

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq – Heshw Mohammed tried to kill herself three times when her father would not let her marry the man she loved, swallowing tablets and surviving only because her stomach was pumped.

Kurdish womanBeautiful, timid and abused, she exemplifies what campaigners and medics warn is a disturbing increase in women killing themselves — largely by self-immolation — in northern Iraq’s relatively peaceful Kurdish provinces.

“My father forced me to marry someone else. We were engaged just 15 days, during which I tried three times to commit suicide,” says Heshw, her eyes cast down, her fingers clenching and unclenching.

Now aged 20, she has been living in a women’s shelter in the city of Sulaimaniyah for two years, virtually shut off from the world, with no psychologist and nothing to fill her time.

“My father would kill me if I went home. He killed my boyfriend. I don’t have any hope for the future. I’m just sitting here, waiting,” she says, refusing refreshment, her expressionless voice barely more than a whisper.

Women’s campaigners say Heshw’s story is all too common. What is unusual is that she took pills. Most Iraqi Kurdish women drench their bodies in cooking fuel from head to toe and set fire to themselves.

Suicide is a stigma in conservative Muslim society, such as the countryside of Kurdistan where men take second wives and poor, uneducated women in particular are second class citizens under their husband’s thumb.

Few admit to self-harm and explain their horrendous burns, from which most never recover, on a cooking accident. The secrecy makes it difficult to track statistics, which range from the dozens to hundreds dead each year.

“Every year there has been an increase in killing. Saying it’s a cooking accident is just a lie. We must put pressure on the government to change the law,” says Aso Kamal, a 42-year-old British Kurdish Iraqi campaigner.

He quotes from newspaper reports that from 1991 to 2007, 12,500 women were murdered for reasons of “honour” or committed suicide in the three Kurdish provinces of Iraq; 350 in the first seven months of this year.

“We want to speak out about this. There is silence in Kurdistan. People say it’s a family matter. We want to change the patriarchal system in Kurdistan. Honour killing is against the law but the law is not being enforced,” he says.

Only five people have been arrested in connection with the deaths — none of whom have been brought to the courts, he adds.

His organisation, the Doaa Network Against Violence — named after a 17-year-old girl stoned to death for eloping — is campaigning for a government budget to tackle domestic violence and has launched an awareness campaign.

Serious problem

Kurdo Qaradaghi, a surgeon who performs reconstructive surgery at the specialist burns hospital in Sulaimaniyah, says most women with burns from the countryside had attempted suicide.

“We have a problem. A serious problem. It may be in self-sacrifice or it may be extreme attention-seeking… The youngest are aged 12 to 14,” he says.

The Women’s Union of Kurdistan in Sulaimaniyah said it recorded 83 women burning themselves in the first six months of last year; 95 in the first half of 2007.

Touring the burns unit at the hospital, plastic surgeon Srood Tawfiq believes few of the excuses, lingering by the beds of two women at death’s door from horrific burns that he says could only have been self-inflicted.

“On average we admit one such patient a day. We suspect most of the women of suicide. Only once did I see a young boy say he attempted suicide. He wanted to a marry a girl and they refused,” he says.

Flaying her heavily bandaged arms around a face horribly disfigured with raw burns, 39-year-old Shawnim Mahmud has spent two days screaming in agony after being brought in following what she said was a cooking accident.

“She has 79 percent burns. Even if a cooking machine exploded, it doesn’t cause these kind of burns. There’s no chance she’ll live,” says Tawfiq.

In the next bed lies Sirwa Hassan, a 27-year-old mother of three from a village near the Iranian border, tubes running in and out of her nose, barely whimpering as her 86 percent burns slowly kill her.

“She said it was kerosene but kerosene will not make this kind of explosion. I don’t expect her to live,” Tawfiq says, gazing down at her bandaged feet, burnt shoulders and flesh, desperately sad eyes watching him in silence.

Anna Ahmed Mohammed, a physiotherapist at the burns unit and one of the few whom patients confide in, fears suicide is increasing as the economic situation deteriorates in Iraq and life gets more difficult.

“There are more economic problems because of the war, especially in Sulaimaniyah because more people from the south come to live here. Salaries aren’t enough to buy what you need. Prices have got up,” she says.

“Here the men always rule their wives. Sometimes it’s unbearable and they can’t take it any longer. Fire is so easy. You can find it at home. Everyone has kerosene at home and a match,” she adds.

Narmen Rostam, 16, has been in hospital for 30 days with burn injuries. Sitting in her tartan hospital pyjamas, she sobs on and off, and admits to being depressed, yet she professes no sympathy for those attempting suicide.

“They are very foolish. They have no mind in their brain. We used to tell them you’ll be suffering this pain now and in the other life.”

Medics cannot be sure that her story about a cooking accident is true.

By Rana Husseini

AMMAN – Criminal Prosecutor Jihad Duradi on Thursday levelled murder and premeditated murder charges against six men in connection with the shooting death of their 22-year-old female relative, official sources said.

The victim, who had been married for two weeks, was gunned down in front of the Deir Alla governor’s office, allegedly by her 38-year-old uncle, an official source close to the investigations said.

Duradi charged the suspect, who claimed family honour as the motive behind the murder, with one count of premeditated murder, according to the source.

Five other people, including the victim’s father and three of her uncles were charged with complicity in premeditated murder, the source added.

The source said a few months before the incident, the victim’s family had suspicions that she was having an affair with a man in their village.

Two weeks ago, the source added, the victim’s family visited the family of the man and asked that the two be married to end the suspicions.

“Although the two got married, the victim’s family were not satisfied and threatened to kill her so she filed a complaint against them at the mayor’s office,” the source explained.

On Wednesday, the victim’s father visited his married daughter and convinced her to drop the complaint against her uncles to contain the problem and avoid further escalation, the source added.

The victim agreed and the following day she headed to the mayor’s office with her father and husband to drop charges against her uncles, the source said.

Before entering the office, the source said, her father lured her to a side road where her uncles were waiting.

“One of her uncles drew a gun and shot her repeatedly until he made sure she was dead,” according to the source.

Police patrols guarding the mayor’s office arrested the entire family, the source added.

The uncle confessed in front of Duradi and said he shot his niece to cleanse his family’s honour, claiming that he learnt just one day before that the victim was wed by her family to conceal an “illegitimate relationship”.

“The suspect said he asked her about her relationship with her husband before they got married and she told him she was free to do whatever she wanted and it was none of his business, so he became enraged and shot her,” the source said.

A postmortem was conducted on the victim at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine on Friday and pathologists extracted six bullets from the victim’s head.

The victim became the ninth woman reportedly murdered in the Kingdom in a so-called honour crime since the beginning of the year.

An average of 20 women are murdered in Jordan each year in family honour-related crimes.

Hi, My name is Mohammad Alazraq, and I’m from Jordan, I was appointed by Mideast Youth’s management to be the director and editor of the No Honour campaign.

Even though my appointment happened shortly after the website had been ready… I couldn’t contribute to it due to my job restraints. I apologise deeply for my shortcoming in that regards, particularly from the management of Mideast Youth who put their trust in me to effectively run and manage this very important campaign, and I promise to dedicate as much time as possible for this campaign to succeed in its honourable mission.

I would like to thank everyone who contributed to the campaign so far, and especially the person who posted the interview with Rana Hussieni , as I was planning to interview her for my first article, but couldn’t allocate sufficient time for it unfortunately.

Anyhow, For my first article, I’ve decided to bring up a case of honour killing that took place in northern Iraq, where an innocent 16-year old Kurdish girl was slaughtered in cold blood by her family , merely because she fell in love with a person who followed a different religion than hers, she was Yazidi and the boy was Muslim.

The case was discussed on Aljazeera International in a show dedicated to women’s issues called Everywoman, that particular episode was posted on You Tube….

I really cannot begin to comprehend how people could kill their own flesh and blood just to satisfy stupid tribal traditions and worse , even worse they dump it on religion!!

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights – PCHR strongly condemns the murder of a woman in the northern Gaza Strip in what is termed as an “honor killing.” The Centre calls for prosecuting the perpetrators, and for taking effective legal action to prevent these crimes that have escalated over the past 2 years.

The Center’s preliminary investigation indicates that at approximately 18:00 on Monday, 13 August 2007, the body of En’am Jaber Deifallah (37) arrived at Shifa Hospital. The victim is from El-T’wam area in northern Gaza City, and was a mother of one child. Medical sources indicated that she was killed by beating with a sharp object on the head. The victim’s family informed PCHR’s fieldworker that one of the victim’s brothers killed her inside her house in a murder motivated by “honor.” Sources in the Executive Force indicated that an investigation in the crime is ongoing, and that the suspect is being pursued.

It is noted that “honor killings” have increased over the past few years in the Gaza Strip. Deirallah is the 11th victims of such crimes this year. The last victim before Deifallah was Nisreen Mohammad Abu Bureik (26) from El-Bureij refugee camp, who was killed by her brother on 28 July 2007. The Palestinian National Authority bears the responsibility for this escalation due to the impunity and reduced sentences granted to the perpetrators of such crimes. This comes despite the fact that the Palestinian Penal Code for the Year 1936, effective in the Gaza Strip, does not differentiate between what is known as an “Honor Killing” and premeditated murder.

PCHR strongly condemns this crime, and:

1. Calls for a serious investigation into the murder of the young women, and for prosecuting the perpetrators.

2. Points to the recurrence of honor killings in the Gaza Strip due to the impunity granted to killers through reduced sentences, knowing that such crimes take honor killings as cover to get reduced sentences.

3. Calls for deterrent steps against honor killings, which must be treated as premeditated murder, taking into consideration international human rights standards

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

By Nasir Iqbal

ISLAMABAD, Aug 15: The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the arrest of 11 members of a jirga, including PPP MNA Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani, for handing over five minor girls to the family of a murdered man as compensation to settle the dispute in Jacobabad.

A five-member Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Javed Iqbal, Justice Sardar Mohammad Raza Khan, Justice Faqir Mohammad Khokhar and Justice M. Javed Buttar took up a complaint of a freelance anthropologist Samar Minallah against the handing over of five girls — Aamna, 5, Bashiran, 2, (daughters of Rahmatullah), Shehzadi, 6, Meerzadi, 2, (daughters of Hafeezullah) and Noor Bano, 3, (daughter of Yar Ali) — to the family of the murdered man as compensation.

The Supreme Court had in June last year frozen the jirga decision to hand over the minors and ordered police to submit an inquiry report within two weeks. The District Police Officer (DPO) Kashmore was told to conduct an inquiry and arrest the jirga members.

When DPO Noor Mohammad informed the court on Wednesday that police had arrested three members of the 14-man jirga, namely Hafiz Qamaruddin, Yar Ali and Rehmat, the CJ asked why were influential people not arrested. “Are you afraid of them?”

The DPO explained that he had assumed his duties just one and half months ago. At this, the bench said that police always picked up poor people and were afraid of arresting influential people.

The rest of eleven members of the jirga nominated in the FIR are Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani, Peer Bharchoondi Mian Abdul Khalique, Thull Tehsil Nazim Syed Ali Akbar Banglani, Ghulam Rasool Banglani, Syed Jalal Shah, Raza Mohammad Banglani, Qamaruddin Banglani, Hafiz Banglani, Habib Banglani and two others.

The jirga presided over by Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani had ordered the handing over of five minors to the victim’s family and imposed a fine of Rs1 million on both the warring parties to settle a decade-old feud.

The feud began in 1997 when one Miandad Banglani was killed in a shootout between Hafiz Qamaruddin and Ali Yar Banglani groups over karo-kari (honour killing) charges in the Kamal Magsi village, Thull tehsil of Jacobabad district. Police registered the case after nine years that too after the media highlighted the injustice.

The event of the jirga was recorded by a regional television and was shown during the hearing. The video footage contained statements of Yar Ali and Rehmatullah, fathers of three of the girls, endorsing the allegations that the girls had been given in to the victim’s family as compensation and the decision of marriage had been taken up by the jirga. The case will be taken up again on September 3.

Al Jazeera International’s Riz Khan speaks with Jordanian human rights activist Rana Husseini about the struggle to impose stricter punishments and deal with the mentality behind honour killings

By Ramzi Choura
02 August 2007

Palestinian women, like all Palestinians, know a lot about suffering. Life for them during the nearly 41 years of Israeli military occupation has not been easy. Between settler violence, Israeli military incursions, and mass Israeli arrest campaigns, Palestinian women know that every time they say goodbye to a loved one, it could be their last.

But the women of the West Bank and Gaza strip also face more a personal and hidden danger. This danger is far less documented than the ongoing Israeli human rights violations, and is a danger that Palestinian society is far less willing to challenge. It leaves Palestinian women humiliated, maimed, and sometimes dead. This danger is physical, sexual and psychological domestic abuse.

Violence against women in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) is widespread and chronic, yet it remains under the radar. Women find it difficult to report abuses because there is little or no legal framework in place to protect them – and because the “honor” of their families is considered more important than the crimes committed against them.

So-called “honor crimes” are a specific strand of violent crimes committed against women. They range from physical and mental abuse all the way up to murder. The latter, referred to as “honor killing,” is the murder of a woman by male relatives for a number of reasons, including, but not limited to, the suspicion of extra-marital affairs (not necessarily sexual), the unwillingness to proceed with an arranged marriage, or because the woman has been raped.

The gravity of this type of murder was reinforced on July 28th when the body of 16-year-old Nahed Hija and her two sisters, 19-year-old Suha and 22-year-old Lina, were found dead in Dir El-Balah, central Gaza. All three of them had been repeatedly stabbed in their faces, legs, and torsos.

These murders are shockingly reminiscent of the murders of three unrelated women who were slain within a 24-hour period in the Gaza strip last February. These were also attributed to ‘honor killings.’

These latest murders bring the total number of women apparently killed for “honor” in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in the last three years to 51, with 12 having been killed so far in 2007.

Speaking immediately after the deaths of the Hija sisters, Islam Shahwan, spokesman for Hamas’ Executive Force, said the brother and a cousin of the Hija sisters are suspects in what is believed to be another spate of “honor killings.” Shahwan claimed the men would be jailed for their crimes.

“There is a law and no one should take the law into his [own] hands. The defendants will be jailed and brought to justice,” Shawan said.

But while Hamas claims that its military take over of the Gaza strip has brought “law and order,” there is little evidence that the perpetrators of this brutal crime will be adequately punished.

According to Human Rights Watch (HRW) “Palestinian women and girls who report abuse to the authorities find themselves confronting a system that prioritizes the reputations of their families in the community over their own well-being and lives.”

The human rights organization published a report at the end of last year highlighting the chronic issue of violence against women throughout Palestine. Human rights activists in Palestine supported its findings.

“The Palestinian judiciary does not take ‘honor crimes’ seriously. Perpetrators of ‘honor crimes are often given light sentences of a few years, whilst others convicted of murder under other circumstances are sentenced to death,” said Hamdi Shakkour of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

In addition to the substandard Palestinian Authority legal framework, Israel’s continued belligerent military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza strip has further weakened the Palestinian justice system and debilitated the government’s ability to handle even the most traditional of security concerns.

“Israeli army attacks, checkpoints, and closures have wreaked tremendous physical and functional damage on the criminal justice system during the second Intifada. As a result, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has a limited sphere in which it is able to effectively exercise governmental authority,” says Human Rights Watch.

The connection between domestic abuse and political violence is not unique to Palestine. Indeed, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics has reported that violence against women in the home significantly increased since the beginning of the second Intifada.

This does not, however, excuse the PA from its larger and systematic dismissal of domestic violence.

Honor killings, such as those that brutally claimed the lives of the 3 Hija sisters last week, are a small but significant part of the overall pattern of violence against women and girls throughout Palestine: a trend that the PA has completely failed to confront.

“This is no excuse for inaction. There is much that PA officials could be but are not doing to end violence against women inside the family,” the HRW report stated.

Organizations like Human Rights Watch have issued a series of recommendations for the PA to start seriously tackling violence against Palestinian women, especially domestic violence. These include establishing more women’s refuges, and opening domestic violence hotlines. To date, there are no women’s refuges in Gaza, and only four in the entire West Bank. All of them are struggling for adequate funding.

What’s needed right now is a radical and courageous overhaul of the Palestinian legal system’s entire response to violence against women.

“The PA is denying victims their rights under international human rights law to non-discrimination and an effective judicial remedy for abuse” the HRW report concluded.

While armed gunmen walk the streets of Gaza and Palestinians continue to endure Israeli military incursions and brutality across the entire Occupied Territories, we cannot forget the other, locally-induced atrocities perpetrated with near impunity against wives, daughters and sisters. Palestinian women and girls need, and deserve, protection, redress and justice.

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Around 1,707 honour killings were reported in Punjab from 1997 to 2003, making the province the leader with regards to gender-related violence.

A report, ‘The Concept of Justice in Islam — Qisas and Diayt Laww’, prepared by the National Commission on the Status of Women and funded by the United National Development Programme (UNDP) presented this information. It adds that till present, the courts have disposed of 1,142 of the 1,707 cases.

According to the report, honour killing is an extreme form of domestic violence, which is rampant in Pakistan because of the patriarchal system prevalent in society. It states 172 cases of murder and 67 cases of other forms of gender violence were reported in NWFP during the same period. Only 10 convictions have been made in the 141 cases presently disposed of by courts.

It states 57 cases of murder and 39 related to gender violence were reported in Balochistan, of which 39 cases have been disposed of with 17 convictions and 22 acquittals. In Sindh, 910 honour killings were reported in the same period, of which only 268 cases have been disposed of with 25 convictions and 268 acquittals.

According to the report, cases of domestic violence, rape, gang rape and chopping off of body parts are on the rise. It states culprits of honour killings are acquitted in most cases and claims that the judiciary shows leniency towards these crimes. It has been held by the courts that “a murder committed on account of ghairat (honour) is no offence”, claims the report.

According to statistics compiled by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), 172 cases of honour killing were reported in Punjab in 2003, of which 16 victims were minors, 69 were single women and 61 were married.

The HRCP has also reported that 82 percent of women in rural Punjab feared violence from their husbands over minor matters and 52 percent of wives admitted to being beaten by their husbands in the most developed urban areas. Women are rarely compensated for injuries sustained by them, particularly in domestic violence, and most victims are not aware of their rights, reports the HRCP.

ROVIA, Iraq — She was a “good girl” and well-respected, people later told police. But being a good girl in a small Kurdish village also meant a dull life.

Unmarried at 23, Ronak Khalel Abdullah spent her days helping her mother cook and clean. So Abdullah’s reaction was perhaps to be expected when a handsome uncle, 14 years her senior, began looking at her in a decidedly unavuncular way.

“Come with me,” he urged, and on July 10 she did.

Within 48 hours, both were dead and Abdullah’s father was in jail, probably for the rest of his days.

All in the name of honor.

– - -

Throughout the Muslim world, hundreds of people – most of them young women – die each year in so-called honor killings. They are typically committed by male relatives angered by what they perceive as immoral behavior that has disgraced the family’s honor.

Dr. Jinan Qassin Ali finds the term “honor killing” repugnant.

“This is not a good word to use because it is murder,” she says, “and these people are criminals.”

Ali is minister of women’s affairs in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, which is trying to stem an increase in deadly violence against women and girls. The Kurdish government has overturned lax Iraqi laws and passed tough legislation in which defendants can be charged with “deliberate murder” and punished by execution or life imprisonment.

But the stiffer penalties have yet to have much of an impact.

In 2005, four women were reported murdered in the Kurdish north, while 22 committed suicide – often by setting themselves on fire – under pressure from relatives. Last year, 17 women were reported killed and the number of suicides soared to 64, police say.

Among the victims was a young woman in Irbil, the Kurdish capital, whose boyfriend photographed her naked on his cell phone camera. As the photos spread from phone to phone, neighborhood to neighborhood, outraged relatives killed the couple.

In the first half of this year at least 24 women died, including 17-year-old Do’a Khalil.

Do’a was a Yezidi, a member of an ancient faith that forbids marriage to outsiders. She fell in love with a Muslim boy and scandalized her village near Mosul when she failed to return home one night.

On April 7, several men dragged her into the street. They kicked her, punched her, threw stones at her and finally smashed her head with a concrete block. A grainy, horrific video that later surfaced on YouTube shows Do’a curled in a fetal position, trying to shield herself from the blows. A crowd of hundreds cheered when she died.

The Kurdish government runs several shelters for women who have been abused or threatened, but most women are afraid to go to them knowing they eventually will have to return home, says Ali, the government minister. A better solution, she says, is to help women get more education, skills and self-confidence.

“They need to depend on themselves economically and not be under the hand of a father or brother or later their husband,” says Ali, a dentist by profession. “It is important to give them a strong personality.”

But, she acknowledges, “we are an Islamic society and, of course, there are a lot of customs in our society. If you want to change a society from violence and make it more calm, it needs time.”

– - -

While a few “honor killings” grab global attention, hundreds go unnoticed beyond the remote places in which they occur. Such was the case with Ronak Abdullah and her uncle.

Abdullah, dark-haired and full-bosomed, had never ventured far from her home in Badarash, a typically conservative village 90 minutes north of Irbil. The only men with whom she had regular contact were relatives like Saady Qadir, a 35-year-old father of three married to her mother’s sister.

No one paid much attention to Qadir’s frequent comings and goings – he was an uncle, after all – until late in the afternoon of July 10. That’s when Abdullah’s mother realized that she was missing, along with nearly $1,000 and a family photo album. About the same time, Qadir’s wife was trying to reach him on his cell phone.

Suspicion grew – some villagers said they had seen Abdullah and Qadir together. When he returned home that night, he was angrily confronted by his father and Abdullah’s father and grandfather.

Qadir insisted he had been in Mosul getting his car fixed, that his wife must have mistakenly dialed someone else’s number. But his phone showed the unanswered calls, and as the night wore on Qadir grew more and more agitated.

Finally, just after morning prayers, he confessed.

“I did a very terrible thing,” he told the men. He said he had raped and suffocated Abdullah, then shot her to make it look like a suicide. He had shamed his wife and could never go back to her.

“Please kill me,” he pleaded.

Abdullah’s father obliged. He pumped Qadir full of bullets, 15 to 20 in all. Then he turned himself in.

Hundreds of volunteers joined police in searching for Abdullah’s body. On July 12 they found her, head down in a shallow lake near the town of Rovia. Fish had eaten away her eyelids and part of her ears; her bloated, staring face was the same shade of purple as the flowers on her billowy gown.

Abdullah’s father, Khaled Taha, is in jail awaiting trial. He could get 15 years or more in prison.

Ali, the women’s affairs minister, finds the case remarkable only in that it was a man, not a woman, who was the victim of the “honor” killing. But she doesn’t hesitate when asked if Taha would have killed his daughter, too, for disgracing her family by running off with a married man.

“Of course,” Ali says. “This is the problem.”

St Petersburg Times