MURDER FOR HONOR.

• Author: Jehl, Douglas
• Position: Honor killings of women in Arab world - Brief Article

IN SOME ARAB LANDS, WOMEN WHO STRAY MAY BE KILLED FOR THE SAKE OF THEIR FAMILIES' REPUTATION

It took six years for the al-Goul family to hunt down their daughter Basma. She had fled after her husband accused her of infidelity, and in the crowded Jordanian village of Resaifah, where a woman's chastity is everyone's business, contempt for her family kept spreading. Because of her alleged infidelity, villagers ostracized her parents, deemed her eight sisters unmarriageable, and taunted her five brothers on the street.

"We were the most prominent family, with the best reputation," says Um Tayseer, her mother. "Then we were disgraced. Even my brother and his family stopped talking to us. They would say only, `You have to kill.'"

Um Tayseer went looking for Basma, carrying a gun. In the end, it was Basma's 16-year-old brother who pulled the trigger, killing her.

In many parts of the Arab world, female chastity is seen as the boundary between respect and shame for a family. An unchaste woman, some people say, is even worse than a murderer. For centuries, the result of that harsh, unforgiving code has been death--the killings of girls and women by relatives in order to cleanse honor that has been soiled. Sometimes, the misconduct is only rumor.

Lately, however, a number of Arab activists and leaders--including Jordan's King Abdullah and Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak--have begun to attack the practice of so-called honor killing. At a conference in Jordan in June, delegates from the region discussed the problem openly--a rarity in itself--and began to consider action.

HUNDREDS OF WOMEN KILLED

The extent of honor killing in the Arab world is difficult to measure. Although such murders are tacitly condoned at many levels of society, most occur among the poorer and less educated, outside the big cities, and far from government scrutiny. In Jordan, statistics suggest that honor killings account for one of every four homicides. Throughout the Arab world, experts say, the number of women killed for reasons of honor may total hundreds each year.

In many Arab countries, killers often receive light punishment, if any. According to human rights groups, judges are given great latitude in sentencing, and many tend to regard the killings as just.

"Nobody can really want to kill his wife or daughter or sister," shrugs Mohammed Ajjarmeh, chief judge of the High Criminal Court in Jordan.

Last June, Wafik Abu Abseh, a 22-year-old Jordanian woodcutter, killed his...