TelePolis writes about “honour” killing all over the world, but also in Germany. ¹ There’s a conference in Köln about the subject. I was interested in the explanation: Even though religion is often used to justify honor crimes, these cultural norms predate Christianity and Islam. The basis is a patriarchical society, where 1. behaviour is strictly regulated (eg. sex), and 2. women have no independence. This results in the at least one male relative bearing the shame for women transgressing the norms, and thus punishment or even murder is required by the male to redeem himself.
The rest of the article then goes into the tendency towards radical Islam in subcultures of migrants, as a means to reaffirm their cultural identity. Islam is the prime target for the criticism of “honour” killings, because these days Islam most often associated with “honour” killing in Europe – even though the article mentions that “honour” killings are a disgrace for humanity from Brazil to India.
As many as 5,000 women and girls are killed annually in so-called “honour” killings, many of them for the “dishonour” of having been raped. – UNFPA State of World Population 2000, specially in Chapter 3, Section "Honour" Killings
UNFPA State of World Population 2000
Chapter 3, Section "Honour" Killings
I didn’t read chapter 3 of the UNFPA report, Ending Violence against Women and Girls. This is too depressing. 🙁
Ending Violence against Women and Girls
#Germany
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We have had huge “honor killing” media scares in Sweden too, and the main purpose seem to be to make Muslim men seem suspect. A journalist investigated how many women had been killed by someone in their family in the last 10 years. In middle-east immigrant groups (who make up about 8% of the swedish population) there had been 4 such deaths. In ethnically swedish families, there have been over 300 cases.
– HenrikEnberg 2006-03-09 18:48 UTC
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Hm, 8% of 300 is 24 expected deaths instead of 4. Interesting numbers! Do you have an URL for it?
– Alex Schroeder 2006-03-09 23:18 UTC