TERMAN 2010 -SHOULD WE USE THE TERM 'HONOUR KILLING'? Flashcards
Use of the term ‘honour killing’ and whether it is an appropriate description of a unique and particular crime, or rather a racist and misleading phrase use to promote violent stereotypes of particular communities, particularly…
Muslim minorities in North America and Europe
Global Campaign to Stop Killing and Stoning Women, which works to end violence against women justified in the name of…
‘culture’
‘religion’
‘tradition’
Western media reports use terms such as
‘honour killing’
‘Sharia’
‘Islamic Law’
Many advocacy groups in Europe and North America argue that there was no difference between…
honour killings and DV
TERMAN argues that ‘honour killing’ exists as a specific form of violence against women, having particular characteristics that warrant is classification as a..
unique category of violence
TERMAN - while ‘honour killings’ are recognised as such in many non-Western contexts, there is a trend among advocacy organisations in the North American and European Diaspora to avoid, ignore, or rebuke the term as a misleading label that is…
racist
xenophobic
harmful to Muslim populations
Misleading label of honour killings and its harm is a direct response to the misuse of the term mostly within media and public discourse that serves to further…
marginalise Muslim and immigrant groups
Recent years - discussions over honour killings and other culturally specific VAW have been framed within the ‘clash of civilisations’ discover in
Europe and North America
Primary source of conflict is the ‘cultural’ difference between the West and non-West, with Islam presented as the predominant antithesis to…
Western civilisation and culture
Honour killings - deemed ‘cultural’ and are placed in a perceived ‘fixed’ culture rather than a ‘fluid’ culture. Placed in the same category as…
forced/early marriages
the veil
FGM
When ‘honour killings’ are seen as something separate from ‘DV’, Muslim culture is reinforced as something separate from Western culture; even if both potentially harm women, they are essentially different and one is almost always seen as…
worse than the other - depending on who is talking
The way we define ‘honour killing’ in conjunction with DV has real affects within..
public policy and the justice system
[SIDDIQUI 2005]
2005 the UK introduced the Domestic Violence, Crimes, and Victims Act, which offered legislative changes to the way DV is addressed in the criminal and civil justice system. However, the document was widely criticised by many women’s groups who argued that the bill failed to address issues affecting..
black and minority women
2005 DV, CRIMES, AND VICTIMS ACT - particularly problematic was the narrow definition of DV as concerning only..
intimate partners
2005 DV, CRIMES, AND VICTIMS ACT - problem - ‘honour crimes’ most often include violence perpetrated by other family and community members, and many feared the bill would fail to protect potential victims of thee and other culturally specific forms of violence unless…
‘honour’ was taken into account in the writing of the law
[SIDDIQUI 2005]
Southall Black Sisters and other groups made up predominantly by South Asian women argued that the issue of ‘honour killing’ had to be integrated into the wider framework of DV and could not be extracted from it in order to prevent a…
racist reaction from the state
Southall Black Sisters and other groups made up predominantly by South Asian women also argued that by singling out ‘honour killing’ from DV, it risked not only downplaying DV as something less serious, but singling out immigrant communities for their apparent…
‘backwards’ values and human rights abuses
it is important to realise that honour in many communities is a matter of self-interest, a necessary condition for…
social, economic and political survival
WIKAN (2008) defines honour killing as “a murder carried out in order to restore honour, not just for a single person but a collective. This presupposes the approval of a supportive audience, ready to reward murder with…
honor”
Features of honour killings that seem to be constant:
1-honour killings almost always involve the murder of a woman by her family members, such as:
Other women are involved in the planning of the murder or cover up afterwards (SEN 2005)
brother, father, husband
Features of honour killings that seem to be constant:
(SEN 2005, WIKAN 2008)
Most often the perpetrator(s) comes from the victim’s family of birth not of marriage, because even after marriage, a woman’s honour tends to be linked to the family of birth since they are the ones who raised her and hence are…
responsible for her sense of shame and chastity
Features of honour killings that seem to be constant:
2-Perpetrator is usually not acting alone - explicit/implicit approval/encouragement by other members of the family to commit murder (ICAHK 2008) because honour must be restored for the…
collective, not just the individual
Features of honour killings that seem to be constant:
3-Suspicion is usually enough to prompt an honour crime. As long as the rumour exists among the community of a woman shaming her family’s honour, even if there is no evidence, the men have been dishonoured. WIKAN (2008) calls this the…
“public” aspect of honour killing
[HK IN NON-WESTERN CONTEXTS: MURDER IS MURDER] One of the most problematic and disturbing elements of HK is that it is often…
condoned and treated more leniently than other murders
[HK IN NON-WESTERN CONTEXTS: MURDER IS MURDER] in many other countries, national legislation legitimises HK or the killing of women by their relatives for…
sexual deviance
[HK IN NON-WESTERN CONTEXTS: MURDER IS MURDER] many activists and human rights defenders prompted to reiterate the mantra that…
‘murder is murder’
[HK IN NON-WESTERN CONTEXTS: MURDER IS MURDER] critics of the leniency of HK in certain countries see the term ‘honour killing’ reinforces the argument that one’s ‘culture’ justifies and legitimises killing in this particular situation, and thus…
decriminalises the act
[HK IN NON-WESTERN CONTEXTS: MURDER IS MURDER]
Some suggest the terms ‘shame’ or ‘dishonour’ killing ignores the fact that many view HK as an essentially ‘private’ matter in which the state has no business interfering, as opposed to murder, which is a crime against…
public safety
[HK IN WESTERN CONTEXTS: A DOUBLE STANDARD]
Is HK just DV by..
another name?
[HK IN WESTERN CONTEXTS: A DOUBLE STANDARD]
Western media wrongly use the term HK even when…
no honour dynamics are at stake
[HK IN WESTERN CONTEXTS: A DOUBLE STANDARD]
Many media reports often label particular crimes as ‘HK’ for the sole reason that they occur among Muslims and/or South Asians, e.g. the gruesome murder of…
Aasiya Hassan [decapitated by husband after attempting to get a divorce and restraining order against him for DA]
‘HK’ presents several challenges to law enforcement, courts and agencies working for the protection of women
1-often many perpetrators of HK, including extended families and the approval of the rest of the…
community
‘HK’ presents several challenges to law enforcement, courts and agencies working for the protection of women
2-Extent of conspiracy that surrounds HK, e.g. hired hitmen(ICAHK 2008), potential victims need special protection from…
social welfare agencies
‘HK’ presents several challenges to law enforcement, courts and agencies working for the protection of women
3-Law enforcement must receive culturally appropriate training on honour crimes in order to best serve those they should be
protecting
Term HK isn’t racist to be specific - it categorises which helps us with a specific phenomenon that require…
specific strategies
[WIKAN 2008] Immigrant community = stricter than home countries, e.g. parents invent rules and call them ‘culture’ in order to..
control the girls…
