ALEXANDRIA: Providing counseling, effective protection and shelter are effective means of combating honor crimes, the participants of an Alexandria conference concluded yesterday.
The Swedish Institute in Alexandria organized a seminar titled “Challenging Honor-related Violence against Women: Legal Rights and State Responsibilities from Feb. 11 to 13.
Several women and human rights activists, feminists and lawyers from the Middle East, Africa, Sweden and other European countries recommended Wednesday building a network for female victims of honor-related crimes, documenting the cases, forming coalitions and cooperating on an international level among governments. They also suggested joining forces with non-governmental organizations and media.
Honor crimes are acts of violence, usually murder, committed by male family members against female relatives, who are held to have brought disgrace on the family.
A woman can be targeted for a variety of reasons, including: refusing to enter into an arranged marriage, being the victim of rape, allegedly committing adultery or seeking a divorce – even from an abusive husband.
While honor killings have elicited substantial attention and outrage, human rights activists argue that they should be regarded as part of a much larger problem of violence against women.
During the three-day seminar, speakers discussed the different forms of aggression carried out against women in Arab countries like Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the Kurdish Autonomous Region, Morocco and the Palestinian Territories.
In Syria, “the government refuses to conduct any strict statistics of the number of honor crimes due to its stance against eliminating discrimination on all levels, said Faida Nassar, member of the Syrian Women Observer (SWO).
In the Palestinian territories, tribal councils interfere to a great extent with the judiciary process applying the principle of reconciliation, which leads to the loss of the violated women’s rights.
“Palestinians usually punish the rape victim rather than the perpetrators, explained Hayam Qa’qour, head of services unit at the Palestinian Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling (WCLAC). “They either force her to marry the rapist himself or get married to a very old man.
In other incidents, she adds, when people get to know about the rape accident, they either send the woman away to another area where nobody knows her or kill her in secret.
“From 25 to 30 women get killed every year in the Palestinian Territories for honor-related reasons, Qa’qour said.
Sometimes men manipulate the law by deliberately murdering women who call for their inheritance or any other rights.
“A perpetrator may use a loophole in the law by claiming he killed for honor reasons and, in turn, be cleared, Qaqour said.
Egyptian women, on the other hand, suffer from law deficiencies, which lawyers believe, is a form of legal violence against women.
“The Egyptian law has never been a magic stick that can put an end to violence against women, said professor of criminal law at Alexandria University Fatouh Al-Shazly.
Women are being discriminated against legally, though Egypt was among the countries approving the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
“For example a man can prove adultery against his wife anywhere while a woman can only complain in case her husband cheats on her at their house.
Not only does honor-related violence exist in the Middle East and Africa, it has also been exported to European countries like Sweden through immigrants, who stick closely to their customs and traditions. Violations against eastern women range from physical abuse to murder threats or killing.
“Immigrants in Sweden prevent their girls and women from practicing the least everyday life activities like joining university or even hanging out with friends, gender equality officer Juno Blom told Daily News Egypt.
“They attempt to apply their social codes within the Swedish context, which leads to their children suffering from duality.
In 1986, an Iraqi family allegedly murdered their daughter and her husband, six months after they got married, because they were not satisfied with her choice. The family claimed the couple had been killed by a secret agent of the Saddam Hussein regime. To date, the perpetrator has not been brought to justice or even identified
Another case took place three years later when a 19-year-old Middle Eastern man flew from Canada to kill his 16-year-old sister in Sweden after discovering thats she had a boyfriend.
“At that time we, as policemen, were not familiar with such crimes, inspector Bo Lagerkvist from Sodermanland County Police told Daily News Egypt.
Numerous cases of eastern girls who were killed after “jumping off balconies have been recently traced. The Swedish police, according to Lagerkvist, suspects they were either thrown by family men or committed suicide due to abuse.
Activists in Sweden say most immigrants force their daughters to marry a relative or an acquaintance from the same community once they finish high school.
Some women call for the help of the Swedish government, which finds them shelters, protecting them from their abusive parents.
“In 2007, we received more than 3,000 calls from Muslim women seeking help, said Aisha Moussa, Eritrean sociologist and board member of the Swedish Association for Women’s Shelters.
“People’s phobias of the so-called liberal society led them to losing their children, Moussa added.
