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September 21, 2006

Afghanistan: Muslim Honor Killings Increasing

A report from the United Nations Office For the Coordination of Human Rights (IRIN), and discussed by Radio Free Europe and AKI states that honour killing is increasing in Afghanistan, back to levels which happened at the time of the Taliban.

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) has claimed that many of the honor killings happen when women or girls refuse to engage in arranged marriage or have "inappropriate" relationships. AIHRC says 185 girls have been killed by relatives so far in 2006, a large increase on last year's rate. As in other areas where honour killings happen, the true figure is probably much higher, especially in rural areas. Sometimes women are driven to suicide or forced out of their homes, where they can only survive by begging.

Dr Soraya Sobrang, head of AIHRC said: "Unfortunately, many women and girls continue to lose their lives due to this brutal crime. Sadly, it's totally ingrained in [Afghan] culture, particularly in rural areas of the country."

She said to Radio Free Europe: "I can tell you that they happen all over Afghanistan. Most of them get buried within the family, and no one is ever informed about them. But today, some cases are made public and are disseminated - so we are able to get some figures. They take place in faraway villages in rural areas."

But the problem of honour killings are, as we wrote on May 28 are part of a larger constellation of abuse and patriarchy, where girl children are not regarded as having the rights to control their own destiny. In such a climate, girls are promised away to others, often in compensation to others. In Pakistan this custom is called vani or swara. It also happens in Afghanistan.

According to a report by the US State Department from September last year on child marriages, "the UN special rapporteur on violence against women, between 60% and 80% of marriages in Afghanistan are forced marriages which give women no right to refuse. Many of those marriages, especially in the rural areas, involve girls below the age of 15. "

The US report added that the UN Population Fund has said that in some rural regions of Afghanistan, children as young as six years old are married off by their families.

In 2004 IRIN reported that child marriages were still happening at a high rate, according to the Afghanistan Ministry of Women's Affairs and also NGOs. Then, it was said that as many as 57% of all marriages in Afghanistan involve girls under sixteen, and some of these as young as nine.

According to Aghanistan's constitution, which had recently been introduced, the minimum age for marriage is 16 years for a girl and 18 for a male.

The consequences of forcing immature girls to have sex and to give birth, as well as preventing them from gaining education and later work, is physically traumatizing. The 2004 report said then that every hour in Afghanistan, two women died while giving birth - the highest maternal mortality rate in Asia.

Rachel Wareham of the NGO Medica Mondiale, said: "Maternal mortality is partly linked to a lack of trained medical professionals, but it is also very clearly linked to girls who are giving birth when they are not yet ready."

A year later, IRIN reported that the situation had not improved. Paul Greening of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said: "Badakhshan [northeastern province] has the highest maternal mortality rate in the country and one of the main reason is under-age marriages - even as young as seven in some cases. This needs to be addressed."

A midwife at Malalai hospital in Kabul said: "It is a shame to say that even in the capital Kabul we treat pregnant mothers as young as 12 years of age."

A study from 2005 by AIHRC found that 500 girls had been given away or traded as part of local conflict resolution practices. 90% of these girls were aged under 14. This is identical in nature to the vani or swara practices of Pakistan where girls as young as one years old can be "traded" as part of "conflict resolution". Most of these Afghan girls became the "property" of their new families.

And the custom of marrying off female children continues. An astonishing report on Afghan child marriages, with striking photographs by Stephanie Sinclair of mere children with their grey-bearded "husbands" appeared in the New York Times magazine in July. A slideshow of Stephanie Sinclair's photographs can be fouond HERE.

11-year old Ghulam Haider was officially betrothed to a 40 year old man, Faiz Mohammed. When Sinclair asked the girl how she felt, she said: "Nothing. I do not know this man. What am I supposed to feel?"

And for the older man in such a relationship there is absolutely no shame. In Western countries, such a man would be flung in prison, or subject to the conditions of Megan's Law, but in Islam how can there be shame when the founder of the "religion", Mohammed, consummated his marriage with a nine-year old girl (Aisha) when he was already in his 50s?

The IRIN report from this month describes the experiences of one girl in Afghanistan, who is now living in fear of her life. She had fled her "marital" home in Paktia, in southeastern Afghanistan in June this year. She now libes secretly with friends in Kabul. She is 15. She is called Bebi, but this is not her real name.

Bebi said: "I was engaged to an old man when I was only six months old, how can that be right? My husband treated me like an animal, not as a human, with daily beatings and torture and locking me indoors. I know he is pursuing me to kill me because he thinks I have disgraced him but God knows it is he who was guilty."

It is from the imposition of such draconian strictures on the lives of women and young girl children that the climate of honor killing finds its natural outcome, should a girl break the "rules" laid down befre her, rules in which she has no say whatsoever.

A spokesman for Afghanistan's interior ministry, Dad Mohammad Rasa, said that though honour crimes were prosecuted under the law, the custom was ingrained in Afghan society and hard to eradicate.

He said: "We have created a commission in the interior ministry to try and eradicate such cases but it will take a long time to overcome such crimes as it has become a part of many people's culture."

And honor killing is only the last step along a path that begins with treating a female child as a piece of property, a sexual asset that can be bartered, forced into submission, and ultimately annihilated if found to be "unsatisfactory".

AIHRC describes the case of another girl of a similar age to Bebi. Sixteen-year old Mujahedeh was murdered by her own father. Her case was recounted by Homa, who directs the Center for the Growth of the Talents of Afghan Women, and who knew Mujahedeh and described her as a happy girl, who liked to read and write. She was subjected to severe beatings at home, and her father killed her to redeem his family "honor".

Homa states: "She had enough. She escaped home and went to the Ministry of Women's Affairs. Then she spent some time in a ministry shelter. She liked to go to school and was busy studying. She was enjoying [better] conditions and she didn't want to return to her family, but her mother insisted they'd let her go to school - her mother said, 'Your father has forgiven your sin.' And she was finally forced to return to her relatives Later it was heard from a neighbor or someone else that her father had murdered her when she returned."

No-one has been prosecuted for Mujahedeh's murder. Annually, according to the UN, 5,000 women and girls are murdered in the name of "honour". The vast majority of these cases involve "Muslim honor".

AIHRC says that this year in Afghanistan, there have been 704 cases of violence against women, 89 cases of forced marriages, and 50 cases of women or girls burning "themselves" to death.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at September 21, 2006 8:13 PM

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