Honor Killings

[DainBramaged]

Due to recent media attention, the problem of ?honor killings? has come under increasing global scrutiny. In various countries throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East and parts of South Asia, women who bring dishonor to their families because of sexual indiscretions are forced to pay a terrible price at the hands of male family members.

Attempted murder and other forms of corporal punishment have been reported. The most severe manifestations of punishment affect only a small percentage of women, even though the notion of family honor and shame is extremely important in most communities of the Muslim world. Women from other faith groups may also be subject to similar attitudes from within their own communities in those countries. Clearly, the prevailing view that devalues and belittles women is derived from Socio-Cultural factors that are justified by a distorted and erroneous interpretation of religion, especially of Islam.

Islam recognizes and celebrates the inherent dignity bestowed by God upon all human beings regardless of race, ethnicity, gender or religion. The Quran is explicit in its emphasis on the equality of women and men before God:

And their Lord has accepted of them and answered them, ?Never will I suffer to be lost the work of any of you, whether male or female, you are members, one of another.." (3:195; see also 33:35)

Reports submitted to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights show that honor killings have occurred in Bangladesh, Great Britain, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Pakistan, Morocco, Sweden, Turkey, and Uganda.. But while honor killings have elicited considerable attention and outrage, human rights activists argue that they should be regarded as part of a much larger problem of violence against women.

In India, for example, more than 5,000 brides die annually because their dowries are considered insufficient, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Crimes of passion, which are treated extremely leniently in Latin America, are the same thing with a different name, some rights advocates say.

http://www.eomag.com/01.04/honor_killings.htm

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Another custom in India.

Widows are highly "encouraged" to jump onto their late husband's funeral pyre to demonstrate their eternal fidelity and love. If they don't jump, they are pushed. Real reason: So the parents or siblings of her late husband aren't "burdened" with the costs of taking care of their daughter-in-law.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Yes

to assume that this is a "Muslim" problem shows lack of attention to what is really going on. Belittling of women started long before Islam was founded--the second class status of women in the pagan Arab world was addressed in the Qur'an. And by addressing it as a "Muslim" problem, many in the world think they don't have to deal with it. Fact is, you find this problem throughout the world--it is cultural in nature, and needs to be addressed world wide--but how? How do you eradicate this sort of thinking?

[rvablue]

3. Micro-finance directed specifically to women is a good first step...

as was pointed out upthread, a lot of this is because many poor women are financially dependent on their husbands/families.

Getting them to be financially independent is the first good step to stopping the violence.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. Like The Hope Project

run by my Order. It provides training and micro loans to women living in the Basti, a slum of Delhi. Or the projects started by the Central Asia Institute, which builds schools in the mountainous parts of Pakistan and makes sure girls are included in basic education and helps fund further education for women as well.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. No

It is not just a muslim problem, but islam and the sharia as practiced today do treat women as 2nd class being and worse

[ogneopasno]

6. Killing women is not culture, it's woman-hating, pure and simple. I don't care if it's dressed up

in religion, culture, tradition, "just the way it is," or what, but it's murder no matter what it's called.