Honor as Property (original) (raw)

Why honor is worth more than a life : A literature review about ’so called’ honor violence

2013

Background: In honor culture the family’s honor is valued by the girl’s or the woman’s social and sexual behavior, in her virginity, and is therefore dependent on how well she can manage the deeply rooted traditional norms that describes what is acceptable or not. Anyone who violates these norms and rules must be punished, and the most extreme form is killings, ‘so called’ honor killings, sanctioned by the community. This is because family honor means everything, more than a life. Oppression and violence in the name of ‘so called’ honor prevent girls and women to make choices about their own life. It restricts them in their everyday life, and is an act of serious discrimination and violation against human rights. More research is needed in this field. Aim: The aim of this literature review was to investigate the factors behind the violence and oppression practiced in the name of ’so called’ honor. Method: The study was conducted as a qualitative literature review based on guidelines...

Honour": Crimes, Paradigms, and Violence against Women (review)

Human Rights Quarterly, 2007

HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY to join in the practical work of building a culture of economic rights. It offers a vast amount of material, nuanced and comprehensive, pragmatic and useful. Neither the text, nor any course based on any of its constituent parts, will be easy. Rather, it is difficult, demanding, complicated, and often frustrating work-like the struggle for economic rights itself. Like that struggle, however, it is absolutely necessary for anyone seeking to further human rights.

Introduction:'Honour', Rights and Wrongs

2005

Published: pages 1-21 in Lynn Welchman and Sara Hossain (eds), 'Honour': Crimes, Paradigms and Violence Against Women, London: Zed Books, 2005. This volume arises out of documentation and reflection by individuals and organisations across diverse regions, communities and cultures on existing and potential strategies of response to 'crimes of honour', seen primarily as a manifestation of violence against women, and a violation of women's human rights.

Culture, Masculine Honor, and Violence Toward Women

Personality & social psychology bulletin, 2017

Prior research has connected the cultural ideology of honor to intrasexual violence between men and to attitudes supporting intersexual aggression in response to perceived honor violations by female romantic partners. We extend this research to show that honor ideology is also associated with an increased likelihood of men actually engaging in violent and sexually coercive behaviors toward women. Extending previous research on honor-based schemas and scripts linked to relationship violence, comparisons between honor states and non-honor states in the United States show that official rape and domestic homicide rates by White male perpetrators (Study 1) and experiences of rape and violence in relationships anonymously reported by White female teenagers (Study 2) were higher in honor states, controlling for a variety of potential confounds. These results extend prior laboratory research on honor-based schemas and scripts into the realm of extreme, real-world behaviors.

1 Introduction: ‘Honour’, Rights and Wrongs

2014

This volume arises out of documentation and reflection by individuals and organisations across diverse regions, communities and cultures on existing and potential strategies of response to 'crimes of honour', seen primarily as a manifestation of violence against women, and a violation of women's human rights. It was catalysed in particular by the murder of two young women, Samia Sarwar in Pakistan and Rukhsana Naz in the United Kingdom, the reported responses of their families and the state, and the growing level of attention, regionally and internationally, to the issue of 'crimes of honour.' It discusses the actual and potential ground-level impact of this attention, which has grown substantially since 1999. It also considers the changing global context of work on 'honour crimes', which is affected by developments such as the attacks of 11 th September 2001 in the United States and their aftermath. This volume is an outcome of a collaborative, action-oriented research project aimed at mapping, disseminating information regarding and facilitating the development of strategies to combat 'crimes of honour'. Initially, the collaboration was between INTERIGHTS, 1 an international human rights organisation based in

The Historical Roots and Occurrence of Honour-Related Violence in Non-Muslim and Muslim Societies

HAWWA, 2013

Every year, males across the world murder thousands of female family members. The practice is called “honour killing” and it entails the execution of female family member(s) for the perceived misuse of their sexuality. The main focus of this paper will be to look at the formative phase of religious-legal ethical codes for disciplining of female sexual conduct, which marks the boundaries of the institution of family in Muslim and Non-Muslim societies. Since most of the incidents reported in the local and global media come from Muslim communities living in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, it is necessary to question why honour-killing practices are still present in the Muslim societies. How have most other religions and civilizations managed to dispose attitudes, perceptions and practices, which breed the practice of honour killing of women?

Honor-Based Violence in Sweden – Norms of Honor and Chastity

Journal of Family Violence

This article investigates the nature of honor-related domestic violence as experienced by 11 young female victims (aged 16-20) with non-Swedish-born parents. It examines what forms of violence are involved and how they are related to each other and looks at the differences and similarities to non-honor-related domestic violence. Qualitative, individual interviews were made with young women who, when in contact with counselors, midwives or social workers, said that they were living with restrictions over their social life and sexuality with some level of control imposed by another person. Accordingly, it is young women's subjective assessment of their experience which defined their inclusion in this study. The analysis has been a recursive process with a theory-oriented approach that uses Bourdieu's concept of symbolic violence as a theoretical lens. The participants belonged to patriarchal families in a particular cultural/religious community and lived under various types of coercive control. For the participants, the core concept of the family norms was twofold: honor and firm demands for chastity. There was a strong link between the restrictions they experienced and their vulnerability to various forms of violence, alongside accounts of strong emotional ties between father and daughter, in most cases. The participants' scope for action was affected irrespective of they were physically abused or not. The findings contribute to an initial understanding of how nonviolent controlling behaviors affect young women's scope for action and highlight daughters' vulnerable situation in a patriarchal family.

Honour, violence and heteronormativity

International Journal of Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 2015

Popular representations of Honour Based Violence (HBV) and honour killings construct this violence as an artefact of an uncivilised code of morality, unique to Islam. Here sharaf or izzat (honour) and shame are adhered to particular moral codes that are only found in the Koran. This clichéd version of HBV frames Muslim women’s sexual autonomy as highly regulated, most commonly by male family members with the complicity of female relatives. In its extreme (and publicly known) forms, HBV is epitomised by the ‘honour’ killings that come to the attention of the criminal justice system, and as a consequence, the media. While these violent crimes are uncommon in Australia, they have received growing scholarly and popular attention in the UK, USA and Canada (Araji 2000, Gill 2008, 2011; Meetoo & Mirza, 2011). This increased scrutiny of HBV, particularly in the UK, has led to a growing body of knowledge about the antecedents and characteristics of this type of violence against women. This emerging research clearly shows that this variant of VAW is neither unique to Islam, nor religious communities more generally. In particular, apart from its occurrence in Muslim communities, this type of violent crime also arises in other ‘moral’ communities (including Catholic, Hindu, Sikh, and Travellers/Roma communities) (CPS 2012, Araji 2000). In other research, intrafamilial violence which aims to regulate and control sexual and gendered behaviours has also been documented in cases of heterosexist hate crimes against gay men and lesbians (Asquith, 2013). In this sense, and contrary to popular representations, honour-based violence is not endemic to Islam, nor to religious codes of conduct. In this paper, it will be argued that the construction of HBV as a matter deviant and antiquated Muslim belief systems is Islamophobic.

Honor killing as a dark side of modernity: Prevalence, common discourses, and a critical view

Social Science Information, 2021

Honor killing is a serious social problem in some countries that is yet to be adequately explained and addressed. We start with an overview of the conceptualization of this phenomenon and review its global prevalence. We argue that honor killing cannot be fully explained by focusing only on religion and sexism. We present a feminist Durkheimian analysis of honor killing as a form of informal social control and argue that honor killing represents a ‘dark side of modernity’ in which the systematic marginalization and stigmatization of minorities and social groups have led them to rely more on traditional honor codes as a kind of informal social control, exacerbating honor crimes. We discuss how a more effective approach to combat honor killing requires not only addressing the issues of sexism and religious fundamentalism, but also the systematic exclusion and stigmatization of local groups and minorities.

Tradition, society and the concept of honor: stories on implementation 1

This article tries to explore the many sides of traditional and patriarchal mentalities in Turkey regarding women and honor. It will discuss the importance of patriarchal implementations of power that construct gender and gender's function amongst traditional or tribal communities in the southeast of Turkey. We will also examine the sovereignty of the hegemony of the male perspective in these societies' value systems. In spite of the regional, economic and social diversity of Turkey, it is clear that religious values, regional traditions and ethnic beliefs all influence the construction of female gender roles, producing many similarities concerning the social status of women throughout Turkey's southeastern and eastern rural areas. These gender constructions establish very serious segregations and inequalities within the public/ private field in the name of "honor." Through legal codes, tribal laws, customs or traditional arrangements, we can witness the patriarchal dominance that occurs in the case of malefemale relationships. The women who have suffered under these patriarchal constructions of gender tell stories of suppression and violence under the real side of honor. The women's stories presented in this article are from Kardam's (2005) study and KAMER's (Women's Center) report books (2005, 2006), which provide copious real-life examples of violence against women in the name of honor.