Crimes Of Honor Killing

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Crimes of honor are defined as crimes committed against a person that has ‘brought shame’ upon his family. These honor killings are usually, if not most of the time, targeted towards women. Women have been raped, tortured, and even killed for refusing to marry someone the family has chosen, committing what the family would define as adultery, or for simply being in a relationship with a person who displeases the relatives. Why are women being constantly targeted in these crimes and where are the laws protecting them? Honor killings are said to be a matter of the past, however it will shock you to find out that they are very well hidden and are affecting women on a worldwide horizon.

To begin with, crimes of honor occur all over the world. It is mostly practiced in all the Middle Eastern countries, mostly in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Morocco and Turkey. Honors killings even exist in North America; in Canada and in The United States, also in parts of India and South Asia. What causes family members to commit such hideous crimes against their own female members of their family? Many reasons have been stated yet the result is one. To state a few, refusing to enter into an arranged marriage, choosing to marry by her own choice, seeking a divorce even if her husband is abusive, wearing unacceptable dress code, committing adultery; which sometimes in these closed communities might simply be defined as a simple holding of a hand, getting pregnant outside wedlock, victim of rape, talking to or seeing a man who is not a family member and finally, prostitution. It is important to state that in some countries, these reasons are not even valid, for instance, in 1997, a report of 5000 Indian women were mur...

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...lowing, a lot of people may believe that honor killings are related to religion. However, none of the world’s major religions accept honor related crimes, but perpetrators have sometimes tried to justify their actions on religious grounds. In addition to the latter, leaders of the world’s faiths have also strongly denounced a connection between religion and honor killings.
As a conclusion, crimes of honor are social in the full sense of the word. They are very strong cultural issues that still exist even though the image on the outside of a certain country is not portrayed as such. For a woman to be killed because she refused a marriage, or because she was seen with another man and hence has brought disgrace to her family is blasphemy. It is sad to think that even with laws protecting these women are still around; these laws are not regarded as something credible.

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