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LONDON, March 22 (AFP) - 3h03 - Shot five times
by her brother, beaten since childhood by her father
and cruelly abused by her husband, one woman from
Iraqi Kurdistan knows too well the heavy price of
family honour.
Some 5,000 women, largely in Muslim countries, die
annually in so-called "honour killings", according
to figures from the United Nations cited at a
two-day conference in London on the issue.
"Survivor B", who did not want to give her real
name, is one of the lucky ones as she managed to
survive a murder attempt by her brother and gain
asylum in Germany with her three children.
Others are not so fortunate, and police in Britain
-- where a growing immigrant population has brought
a spread of crimes committed to protect a family's
reputation -- want to raise awareness about the
problem.
"We have to be resolute and courageous to do this
because we are treading in areas where it has not
been normal for a Western police service to go,"
said London's Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian
Blair, Britain's top policeman.
"But this is a multicultural city, this is probably
the most diverse city on the planet, and all of our
communities need and require protection," he said at
the conference, which is due to conclude on Tuesday.
Honour-based crimes, such as beatings and murder,
are usually perpetrated by families against
relatives who are believed to have caused them
shame.
Pakistan has the worst record of such violence but
it takes place in Islamic societies across the
world, said Riffat Hassan, professor of humanities
and religious studies at the University of
Louisville, in the US state of Kentucky.
"The largest scale of terrorism in the world is
against women," she told the conference, which was
organised by Britain's police and interior ministry.
Hoping to put a face on the suffering that takes
place behind closed doors from India and Kurdistan
to Britain and Sweden, Survivor B flew from her new
home in Germany to share her story at the gathering.
One of four children, the petite, brown-haired woman
who was born in 1967, described how her father
abused her from the age of six and then forced her
to marry a cousin at 15.
"My husband beat me many times and I have marks all
over my body. I even had to have my back operated on
because he collapsed my vertebrae," she said.
"I wanted to kill myself but decided to hang on
first for the sake of my mother and then for the
sake of my three children as I knew that if I
committed suicide my husband would not care for
them," she recalled.
After years of mental and physical abuse, her
husband finally threw the woman out of his house,
forcing her to move back in with her father.
She tried to seek custody of her children but was
warned not to go to court.
Eventually her husband agreed to take her back but
she refused to go unless the beatings stopped.
Furious that a woman would make such demands, her
father, cousins and brother hatched a plot to kill
her.
Voice wavering, the woman described how in 1998 she
was at home one day and heard gun shots outside. Her
father told her to check what was going on.
"I saw my brother coming down the path. He was only
17 but he looked like a criminal -- very angry and
pale," said the frail-looking woman.
The younger brother then pulled out a gun and shot
his sister three times.
"I did not fall down, so he shot me again in the
hip," she recalled.
"Still I did not fall, so he shot me in the pelvis
and, that is when I fell over in front of the door."
She spent a month in hospital and upon her release
had nowhere to turn, and ended up seeking shelter at
a local prison where her wounds became infected and
she was hospitalised again.
Finally the woman found a support group to give her
shelter and ultimately managed to escape to Germany,
where her children were later sent.
The London conference -- attended by police officers
from across Britain as well as academics and human
rights experts -- may, in addition, to increasing
awareness, also produce a set of practical measures
to help authorities and social services better
understand and deal with honour crimes.
"It's about time that this issue is given a national
profile. These issues have been happening for
years," said Jasvinder Sanghera, 40, the Asian
affairs manager of a charity refuge.
Sanghera herself was disowned by her family after
running away from home at the age of 15 to escape a
forced marriage and attempted suicide before
managing to get her life in order.
"It is the loneliest place in the world because
overnight you lose everything that you knew -- your
family, the community. They totally treat you like a
dead person but you are living and breathing," she
told AFP.
AFP
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