honor killings

My Sisters Made of Light

mandy — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

When I attended the book signing for Jacqueline St. Joan’s novel My Sisters Made of Light, I knew nothing about the book aside from its inspiration: a chance encounter between St. Joan, an American domestic violence activist, and Aisha, a Pakistani activist. St. Joan was moved by a shared sense of purpose to write Aisha’s story—the story of a teacher who has orchestrated secret efforts to rescue women condemned to death for so-called honor crimes in Pakistan for the past twenty-five years.

Due to the sensitivity of the issue, St. Joan ultimately chose to fictionalize Aisha’s story. She takes readers on an intimate journey into the lives of four emboldened sisters—the “mother” of the family, Uji, and her sisters Reshma, Faisah, and Meena—as they confront the beauties and betrayals of their culture. The resulting novel is a moving portrayal of the violence women in Pakistan experience, the widespread impact, and the courageous individuals who are fighting to eradicate these life-threatening human rights violations.

Traversing the diversity of Pakistan’s distinct cultures and classes, My Sisters Made of Light successfully weaves past and present, foreign and familiar, and personal and political to create a compelling account of the devastating suffering and extraordinary heroism that exists in ordinary lives. In addition to vividly illustrating the risks and successes of human rights activism in Pakistan, My Sisters Made of Light depicts the heart-wrenching complexities that rest at the core of familial allegiances and alienation.

Together with Uji, readers encounter woman after woman, injustice after injustice: Bilqis, burned to death by her uncle; Taslima, shot and killed by an assassin hired by her family; Chanda, a girl child whose nose was sliced off by her father. What seems like a never-ending compilation of injustices reads just as it should: overwhelming and deeply unnerving. Each incident is one woman’s story and one part of a larger narrative—that of the insidious and ubiquitous legacies of violence that extend far beyond boundaries of culture and country.

At the book signing, St. Joan emphasized that, although written for the women of Pakistan, My Sisters Made of Light is ultimately intended for a Western audience. Careful not to reinforce all-too-common stereotypes of victimized Muslim women, the book’s strength is the universal: what it means to be a mother, a daughter, and a sister. The tears I shed at several points while reading the book speak to its success.

To this day, Aisha is struggling to ensure women’s human rights are respected in Pakistan. Her most recent undertaking is a safe shelter for women and children escaping abuse. Aisha has the land for a shelter and the contractors are even lined up to build it; she just needs the cash to pay for it. St. Joan is dedicating half of the proceeds from the sale of My Sisters Made of Light to help Aisha. Although the book ends, the struggle for women’s human rights does not.

Written by: Alicia Simoni, January 26th 2011

Quest for Honor

mandy — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 10:00:00 +0000

Directed by Mary Ann Smothers Bruni

SB Productions

Should the fate of our lives be put in the hands of another human being merely because we are women? The right to feel secure in one’s own body is a basic and fundamental human right that should be employed by all human beings, despite their race, sex, gender, religion, age, and class. Unfortunately, many individuals run the risk of being physically, sexually, emotionally, and psychologically abused merely for being women.

Out of every three women worldwide will be abused during her lifetime with rates reaching seventy percent in some countries. Violence against women is borderless. It knows no boundaries. It does not limit itself to the privileged or the poor, and it can be found anywhere and everywhere, amongst our sisters, mothers, daughters, aunts and friends. Quest for Honor provides its viewers with several real life cases that illustrate the hideous practice of so-called honor killing in Kurdistan. Runak Faraj, Kulthum Murad, Hemin Kaikay, and Lawen Asad investigate, interview, and challenge societal traditions and norms by revealing how a simple claim about women’s sexuality can result in her death.

The claim that women have brought shame upon their families becomes an incentive that legitimizes the cycle of violence against women. Although Quest for Honor focuses on honor crimes that have occurred in Kurdistan, one has to recognize that these cases repeat themselves over and over again in many different countries. Thus, the film should be considered to be a building brick that educates the general public by providing the latter with a visual representation of gendered violence.

Are honor crimes motivated by a patriarchal construction of society? Runak Faraj, editor of Rewan (Dawn), the Women’s Media Centre newspaper in Sulaymani, and her colleague Kulthum Murad try to answer this question by conducting several interviews with people of varying social statuses. “I’ve come for your opinion as an official,” Faraj tells Ali Hama Waso, who is the mayor of Rania. “There is a large number of women killed here.” His answer: “This is the case throughout Kurdistan, and the number hasn’t increased. Besides, men aren’t responsible for women’s suicides, women burning themselves or throwing themselves in the lake. The trouble is not Kurdish men or cultural expectations."

Although I support Mary Ann Smothers Bruni’s attempt to demonstrate the relation between honor crimes and patriarchy, I believe analyzing honor crimes solely as a patriarchal oppression disregards the legal, economic, and cultural structures present in every society that generate grounds for violence. All in all, Quest for Honor provides enough evidence to aid international media reporting on honor killings and facilitate the advancement of the women’s movement globally by embarrassing and shaming those countries that condone such atrocious practices against women.

Written by: May Abu Jaber, September 7th 2010

Murder in the Name of Honor: The True Story of One Woman's Heroic Fight Against an Unbelievable Crime

admin — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:00:00 +0000

By Rana Husseini

Oneworld Publications

Rana Husseini is a journalist from Jordan, and in Murder in the Name of Honor, she writes of the aftermath and trauma of honor killings in Jordan and around the world that she has researched and witnessed. Honor killings are defined as the murder of a woman by a family member(s), usually a man or men, because the woman has in some way brought dishonor upon the family. Some of the examples of dishonor, and reasons for death, include rape, marrying without permission, leaving home, falling in love, or even the rumor of impropriety. In some countries, including her home country of Jordan, the punishment for the murderer is generally quite lenient, under five years in prison. While some believe that honor killings only take place in Jordan and neighboring countries, in fact, there is a disturbingly large number of killings that take place in the Western world, including America.

Husseini has become determined to shed light on honor killings and to change the laws that allow those who commit the killings such lenient punishments. The book traces her journey of reporting and researching the crimes throughout the world. It is filled with touching and terrifying anecdotes, along with the challenges of trying to change minds and laws. Many “tribal” customs and courts support the killings; a family’s honor, but most particularly a man’s honor, is to be held in the greatest esteem. In the cases of these murders, a man’s honor is worth more than a woman’s life. Women going to the police or authorities can face disbelief or they are simply returned to their families, and it is the families that are the women’s worst enemies in these cases.

Husseini also addresses the challenge faced by such a polarizing and politicized issue; it can be easy to stereotype and assume; however, she makes it clear that not all men and women from Jordan (including Jordanian royalty), or other countries where honor killings are prevalent, believe that murder is honorable. With the interviews that she conducted with some of the murderers, many stated remorse and regret over the actions, but most state that they had no choice. It was something that had to be done. The book illuminates the problem for the complex and convoluted issue that it is, and it offers no easy solutions because there are none. I would have liked to know more about what could be done by the “everyday” reader: writing politicians, etc., though at her website, there are links for more reading and some sites with calls to action.

Written by: Kristin Conard, January 23rd 2010