Honour': Crimes, Paradigms and Violence Against Women

399 Pages·2005·1.95 MB·English

by  Lynn Welchman

cover
Critical praise for this book
This marvellous collection of essays is an important contribution to our
collective understanding of the range of violence, mainly against women, that
goes under the shorthand of ‘honour crimes’. Like many such terms, it silences
and conceals structures of domination, of violence and sexual regulation as
much as it reveals the kind of defences that patriarchy summons to its aid.
The contributors are passionate and analytical, legally informed and sensitive to
the dangers of culturalist and Eurocentric discourses. This book must find its
way to the shelves of every concerned lawyer, activist and citizen.
Nandini Sundar, Professor of Sociology, Delhi University
An extremely timely and insightful book! The collection of essays in this volume
will deepen our understanding of the many faces of violence against women.
By challenging the invocation to justify crimes committed in the name of
honour, the authors vocalise the silent but brave resistance of women worldwide
whose lives are encroached upon with claims of dishonour. Combined efforts of
activists, academics and women in their everyday lives
in countering such social myths will amass in relocating the shame and
dishonour from the victim to the perpetrators where they belong.
Yakin Ertürk, Middle East Technical University, Ankara,
UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women
‘Honour crimes’ are in fact among the most dishonourable of crimes involving
the killing of others. While clearly condemning these outrageous practices, this
book brings very welcome analytical balance, nuance and sophistication to
the task of understanding and seeking to combat such killings. It is by far
the best recent work on the issue and is indispensable reading.
Professor Philip Alston, Director of the Center for Human Rights
and Global Justice, New York University School of Law
This urgently needed volume provides invaluable insight on how we should
understand the concept of ‘honour crimes’ as it impacts predominantly
on women and girl children in different contexts throughout the world.
The volume helps to debunk the view that ‘honour crimes’ are a ‘Muslim’
phenomenon, that they are separate from the issue of violence against women,
and that the struggle for women’s human rights is somehow ‘alien’ to non-
Western or minority communities. Above all it offers an opportunity to develop
strategies of resistance in the light of shared knowledge. Thoughtful and
thought-provoking, the volume is an indispensable tool for anyone seriously
committed to eradicating violence against women in all communities.
Pragna Patel, Southall Black Sisters
This is an excellent contribution to debates about ‘crimes of honour’,
violence against women, and the politics of culture. Setting new standards for
collaborative work between activists and academics, it is a major resource
not only for those working in the field of legal studies, but also for
social scientists and policymakers.
Professor Annelies Moors, ISIM chair,
University of Amsterdam
‘HONOUR’
Crimes, paradigms and violence against women
EDITED BY LYNN WELCHMAN AND SARA HOSSAIN
SPINIFEX PRESS
Victoria
ZED BOOKS
London & New York
‘Honour’ was first published in 
by Zed Books Ltd,  Cynthia Street, London  , ,
and Room ,  Fifth Avenue, New York,  , 
www.zedbooks.co.uk
Published in Australia and New Zealand by Spinifex Press,
 Queensberry Street, North Melbourne, Victoria  Australia
www.spinifexpress.com.au
Editorial copyright © Lynn Welchman and Sara Hossain 
Copyright © individual contributors 
The rights of the contributors to be identified as the authors
of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Contents

Acknowledgements viii
Preface: Violence against women and ‘crimes of honour’ xi
RADHIKA COOMARASWAMY
Introduction: ‘Honour’, rights and wrongs 1
LYNN WELCHMAN AND SARA HOSSAIN
1 United Nations approaches to ‘crimes of honour’ 22
JANE CONNORS
2 ‘Crimes of honour’, value and meaning 42
PURNA SEN
3 The role of ‘community discourse’ in combating ‘crimes
of honour’: preliminary assessment and prospects 64
ABDULLAHI AHMED AN-NA`IM
4 ‘Honour killings’ and the law in Pakistan 78
SOHAIL AKBAR WARRAICH
5 Murders of women in Lebanon: ‘crimes of honour’
between reality and the law 111
DANIELLE HOYEK, RAFIF RIDA SIDAWI AND AMIRA ABOU MRAD
6 ‘Crimes of honour’ as violence against women in Egypt 137
CENTRE FOR EGYPTIAN WOMEN’S LEGAL ASSISTANCE
7 Researching women’s victimisation in Palestine:
a socio-legal analysis 160
NADERA SHALHOUB-KEVORKIAN
8 Culture, national minority and the state:
working against the ‘crime of family honour’ within the
Palestinian community in Israel 181
AIDA TOUMA-SLIMAN
9 Changing the rules? Developments on ‘crimes of honour’
in Jordan 199
REEM ABU HASSAN AND LYNN WELCHMAN
10 Honour-based violence among the Kurds: the case of
Iraqi Kurdistan 209
NAZAND BEGIKHANI
11 ‘Crimes of honour’ in the Italian Penal Code: an analysis
of history and reform 230
MARIA GABRIELLA BETTIGA-BOUKERBOUT
12 The ‘legitimate defence of honour’, or murder with impunity?
A critical study of legislation and case law in Latin America 245
SILVIA PIMENTEL, VALÉRIA PANDJIARJIAN AND JULIANA BELLOQUE
13 ‘There is no “honour” in domestic violence, only shame!’
Women’s struggles against ‘honour’ crimes in the UK 263
HANNANA SIDDIQUI
14 Of consent and contradiction: forced marriages in
Bangladesh 282
DINA M. SIDDIQI
15 From fathers to husbands: of love, death and marriage
in North India 308
UMA CHAKRAVARTI
16 Tackling forced marriages in the Nordic countries:
between women’s rights and immigration control 332
ANJA BREDAL
References 354
About the contributors 370
Index 375
Acknowledgements

Many people have been involved in the five-year process of the CIMEL/
INTERIGHTS Project on ‘Strategies to Address Crimes of Honour’ which has
culminated in this publication. First, we would like to thank all the individual
authors named in this book, for their engagement in a collective process of
exchanging ideas and documenting experiences and critical reflections, for
their patience with our editing processes, and for their friendship.
We would also like to thank all those named in individual chapters as
having contributed to the research, and those working on the ground in
organisations across the world whose activities formed the basis of the research
papers or influenced our thinking, including the Association for Advocacy and
Legal Initiatives, Ain-o-Salish Kendra, Centre for Egyptian Women’s Legal
Assistance (CEWLA), Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the
Defense of Women’s Rights (CLADEM), Kurdish Women against Honour
Killings, Shirkat Gah, Southall Black Sisters, Women Against Violence and
al-Badeel (working in the Palestinian community in Israel), Women’s Centre
for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC), Women for Women’s Human
Rights, Lebanese Council to Resist Violence Against Women, the National
Campaign to Eliminate So-called ‘Crimes of Honour’ in Jordan, the New
Woman Research Centre and Nafisa Ibn, the Association Marocaine pour
les Droits des Femmes and Centre Fama pour l’Orientation Juridique sur les
Droits des Femmes.
Many people helped us through formal and informal discussions to gain
further and valuable insights into the range of issues raised in this work and
introduced us to new resources and information, including in particular
Angelika Pathak, Javiera Rizvi, Gita Sahgal and Purna Sen.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix
All of those who contributed to the project over the years, including those
at INTERIGHTS and at SOAS who have helped to administer it, require
particular thanks, especially Maureen Gaskin. We take this opportunity to
credit the dozens of volunteers who have helped the project in different ways,
including SOAS students and others working on the Annotated Bibliography,
the Directory of Initiatives and the International Legal Materials, and who are
acknowledged individually in those documents.
The project was supported by the Ford Foundation’s Peace and Social Justice
Programme in New York, through the good efforts and enthusiasm of Mahnaz
Ispahani, then a programme officer. For subsequent years we owe thanks also
to Fateh Azzam and most recently to Emma Playfair of the Ford Foundation’s
Middle East and North Africa Programme in Cairo, for continuing to support
the project and to be engaged discussants in our work. Thanks are also due
to Denise Dora of the Ford Foundation Brazil and to Aubrey McCutcheon,
then of the Ford Foundation India, for the resources for exploring research and
advocacy in Brazil and India, which are reflected in this volume.
Anna Hardman of Zed Books worked hard with us to get this publication
out on schedule, and we thank her for her patience, support and flexibility.
On a personal level, Lynn’s thanks go to Akram al-Khatib, for his love and
for being everything that he is; to Elsie and Geoff Knights; and to friends
including Laila Asser, Randa Alami, Urmi Shah, Aida Touma, Purna Sen, Emma
Playfair and Anne Fitzgerald; and to Sara for her friendship and humour, for
shared delights and despairs, and for teaching me so much. Sara’s go to David
Bergman for being there (and being with Laleh) and to Hameeda and Kamal
Hossain; to Gita Sahgal, Shohini Ghosh, Faustina Pereira, Beena Sarwar and
Cassandra Balchin for conversations across the years, and lastly (and mostly)
to Lynn and to Emma Playfair for being such good friends and mentors, for
their insistence on building truly collaborative and transnational human rights
initiatives, and never losing sight of political context at every level.
Finally, we would like to draw attention to the amazing input into the
project from the women who worked as researchers on the project down the
years. These include Samia Bano, who started it all off, and whose activist and
intellectual critique of multiculturalism reinforced our approach to the work.
Fouzia Khan was a bedrock through the middle years of the project; and
the omnicompetence and enthusiasm of Moni Shrestha kept us all on track.
Enormous gratitude is due in particular to Sanchita Hosali, whose timely
arrival in the final phase of the Project, critical steering of and contribution to
this publication, and ability to juggle research, writing and project organisation,
ensured that there was method in the midst of the madness and finally a
publication! We thank also Floriane Begasse and Joyce Song for helping the
project on its way.
Lynn Welchman and Sara Hossain