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What honour in killing?
22.12.2007
By Houzan Mahmoud
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The
co-founder of the Iraqi Women's Rights Coalition
writes on a spate of 'honour killings' in Iraqi
Kurdistan and Basra
December
22, 2007
For decades women in Kurdistan have been subjected
to all kinds of discrimination and suppression.
Falling in love with the 'wrong' person can cost you
your life. Sex outside marriage may bring a death
sentence. The price of bringing 'shame' upon family
honour can be a woman’s life.
The breakdown of law and order in Iraq following the
2003 US-led invasion has exacerbated the situation –
earlier this month Youssif Mohammed Aziz, the
regional minister for human rights in Kurdistan
reported that at least 27 women had been murdered in
the region over the last four months in 'honour
killings'. |
Houzan Mahmoud is a political activist from Iraqi
Kurdistan and a co-founder of the Iraqi Freedom
Congress (IFC) |
There have been many cases of brutal killings, but
this is only one side of the story. Many women and
young girls have taken or attempted to take their
own lives as a way of resisting the social control
and subordinated role imposed upon them.
For example, Kurdistan’s Hawlati newspaper published
a report carried out by a hospital in Sulaimaniyah
recording more than 7000 cases of women setting fire
to themselves between 2000 and 2007.
Only after the stoning of a seventeen-year-old
Yazidi girl, Dua Khalil Aswad, did the Kurdistan
Regional Government issue a statement condemning so
called 'honour killings' and violence against women.www.ekurd.net
But soon after the
statement was issued more than seventy women were
killed for similar reasons and to this date none of
the killers have been arrested.
Most Middle Eastern governments base policy and law
upon a strict interpretation of Islamic teachings
and codes of conduct. The notions of shame, honour,
guilt and sin are then imposed on women through a
conservative patriarchal culture. War, occupation,
corrupt government and the existence and growth of
Islamic and traditional conservative parties have
all contributed to the formation of a hostile,
anti-women environment in Iraq. Women are considered
by many to be the possessions of men - it’s as if we
only exist because men wish it so!
In a society where violence and sexual abuse towards
women is a widespread cultural phenomenon it can be
hard to see where any improvement in the conditions
and rights of women can be made.
In the northern Kurdistan region of Iraq the
systematic abuse and suppression of women is bad
enough, but in the south the situation is much
worse. Under the occupation women have been
subjected to all kinds of attacks: beheadings, rape,
abduction and trafficking. Political Islamists have
formed various armed militias and groups that target
women in particular. They do this to further their
long term aim of a creating a conservative Islamic
society in Iraq governed by their interpretation of
the Shari'a, the Islamic law that already prevails
in countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran.
In the last three months more than 40 women have
been killed by the Islamists in Basra alone,
murdered because of their 'un-Islamic' dress,
according to Iraqi police. It is believed that many
more deaths go unreported for fear of reprisals. In
others cities where the Islamists have a stronger
hold on power, the situation is even worse.
More violence and oppression against women unfolds
with every new political twist and turn in the
region. Our rights – the rights of women – have been
taken away again and again.www.ekurd.net
But there is a glimpse
of hope in the form of courageous women taking up
the fight and speaking out against male chauvinism,
misogynistic Islamic ‘values’ and the traditional
norms of society that relegate and subjugate women.
The battle for equality dignity and liberty is well
overdue. In the 21st Century no woman should be
treated like an unchained slave – it’s time to turn
this world upside down.
Houzan Mahmoud is a political activist from Iraqi
Kurdistan and a co-founder of the Iraqi Freedom
Congress (IFC)
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