Ferris Nesheiwat has written that, “Jordanian society has demonstrated wilful ignorance of the true principles that govern crime and punishment under Islamic law. If true principles of Islamic law were followed, not a single woman would lose her life because of fornication and no woman would be extra judicially killed.”
That’s my point! Article 340 is very specific and is never used. Article 98 is what needs to be addressed. Also, these crimes happen in Christian societies in this part of the world as well. So it is not exclusively an Islamic crime.
There is also the issue of the time frame. If the husband walks in and sees his wife with another man and kills her, this can be claimed to be a moment of insanity. But in the cases in Jordan, the family actually comes together and plots to kill the female family member. It is a premeditated murder.
Exactly.
You have written about how the fabric of family life is being destroyed.
I believe killing is not the solution. Many families will suffer the consequences even if they don’t think they will or are. One mother told me her son is so depressed, he won’t talk to anyone after killing his sister. He is always alone. The killers are victims as well. I don’t think anyone really wants to kill their sister or beloved or mother. I think many of the killers are victims of wrongful cultures and belief. There is nothing in our culture that says to kill. The problem is, people are hypnotized. When you try to discuss this issue, people say, “This is my culture, my tradition.” But when you look into culture and tradition, it doesn’t say you have to kill.
In the places where the law has been changed to keep the stricter punishments in place, for example, the northern Iraq Kurdistan governorates, honor killings are not as prevalent anymore, but “suicides” among females have risen. In Kurdistan, many women are suspiciously dying due to their bathroom heaters igniting and burning them to death. This adds to your argument that you can’t just address the laws.
Listen, I want to tell you something. All over the world, there are laws. People break these laws. You have executions. You have death penalties. But people still commit crimes. Here in Jordan, if you change the laws, if you make them harsh, it will minimize the problem. But it is not going to end it. People will always find other ways. For me, as an activist and as a journalist who has devoted all my professional life to this topic, the reason I want to change the laws is because I want to reserve the dignity of the lives of women in Jordan. A woman’s life should not be worth three or six months in jail. You can write a bad check and get a much longer sentence than if you kill a woman.
What is the average sentence a killer—a male member of a family who kills a female member of his family—gets for this so-called honor killing?
Honor killers still get three- or six-month prison sentences, but judges are tending to give them longer sentences averaging between three months and 10 years, but 10 years for an honor crime is not usual. The court may decide that the man has lied and give him the death sentence, but in 99.9999 percent of the cases the family drops the charges, so the court immediately drops the sentence to 10 years.
There is the question of females who escape death at the hands of their families but remain under threat of death. Are there any shelters for these women?
There is only one shelter. It opened recently and is run by the government for women who have suffered domestic violence. It does not help women who are being hunted by their families who want to kill them. The shelter has helped some women under threat of death but mostly women who have been abused are sheltered. The shelter is a story on its own. It took them forever to open it. The government first planned to open it in 1997 and its name was finally changed from a shelter to the Family Reconciliation Center. It can house between 35 to 50 women and 36 children.
