WUNRN
Via Working Group on Violence
Against Women & Girls
NGO Committee on the Status of Women
– Geneva
Robert
Ermers (PhD)
is an Arabist and Turcologist. He is a Trainer and Consultant on culture
related matters. Dr. Ermers is an external analist to the National
Expertise Center in Honour Related violence of the Netherlands’ police.
HONOUR RELATED VIOLENCE
1) Introduction
Honour related violence is in
fact a common social phenomenon, even though the details differ along cultural
lines.
The sentence above is the outline
of this contribution. The more common a phenomenon is, the better it can be
related to general tendencies, and the easier it is to understand certain
characteristics. Making clear that there are obvious links between a given
phenomenon to general concepts renders it unnecessary to exotise behaviour of
people from ‘other’ cultures. Apart from being more fair, this approach will
enhance communication both with victims and perpetrators of honour related
violence and, in the long run, help combatting honour related violence.
In this paper we will therefore
examine the exact meaning of a number of concepts related to honour related
violence, the most important being: honour, social status, face, family, honour
killing, honour related violence.
There is a certain tendancy to
consider honour related violence a subcategory of domestic violence or of male
violence against women. However, the term itself reveals no correlation to that
respect. Honour related violence is related to honour just like alcohol is
related to alcohol related violence. The term honour related violence in itself
therefore does not reveal anything about the relationship between the
perpetrator and the victim, the victim’s or perpetrator’s gender or the place
the violence takes place. The only thing it conveys is that in one way or
another honour is involved.
1.2) Brief history of honour
related violence in Europe
The presence of honour related
violence in North West Europe is generally being related to the immigration of
workers from the Mediterranean, especially from rural areas in Turkey and
Morocco in the sixties and seventies. In the eighties the immigrant workers
started getting their families to Europe. Starting from that period police
forces were confronted with the first instances of blood revenge and honour
related violence, even though the latter term dit not exist at the time.[1][1]
Later on, numerous refugees,
escaping poverty in Africa and Asia, and people fleeing wars in the Middle
East, came to seek a better future in Europe. This paper is based upon cases
from the cultural area that stretches from Morocco to Pakistan and from Turkey
to Yemen. For sake of convenience, this area is called Middle East.
In view of the number of
immigrants and their offspring, the study of the culture-specific problems has
become more than a mere academic excercise. Not only do governments need –
where possible – to take care of prevention, and the protection and treatment
of victims, but a democratic system also demands a transparant legal
prosecution, and a fair trial for suspects.
The type of violence discussed
here is indisputedly related to the honour of the family. The compound ‘family
honour’ presupposes knowledge of two concepts: family and honour. At the same
time it is known that cultures differ from one another in their perceptions of
both honour and family. In other words: European or western concepts of honour
and family are not adequate for explaining phenomenons that stem from different
cultures. Often reference is made to all kinds of stereotypes that very rarely
relate to the complex reality.
2) Honour
2.1) What is honour?
This question has been asked many
times, but it appears to be more difficult to answer than is often thought. In
general, though, most researchers acknowledge that honour is related to the
position of the individual to his or her society. However, in antropological
research honour is often mixed up with social status (cf. Bartels 1993, also
Van Eck 2003). In one anthropological source the Egyptian tribe Awlad Ali is
assigned the following characteristics of ‘honour’: descent, authonomy,
independence, strength, self discipline, morality, authority, honesty,
integrity, loyality (Abu-Lughod 1986:86). Most of these characteristics have
been known as elements of social status.
Roughly there are two types of
social status: attributed status, i.e. status related to the family or
environment one is born in and achieved status (cf. Foladare 1968:55).
Attributed status: being a
member of a certain family, being born in a certain town, having a certain
accent, having a light (or a dark) coloured skin, straight or curly hair,
having a tall (or a short) body, etc.
Achieved status: a high
age (and the wisdom that comes with it), a certain profession or level of
education, achievements in sports, craftmanship or the like, nice possessons
(car, cattle, home), being known as very generous, loyal, courageous, being
married into a certain family, knowing powerful people, having a beautiful
spouse, beautiful children
For each characteristic it
depends of the cultural context whether the characteristic is considered a
positive, negative or neutral asset. For example, in some communities knowing
the Koran by hart raises one’s social status, in others it is more important to
look young. Especially achieved status is variable per se, since some may
possess more of a given characteristic than others, while people may lose the
characteristic in the course of time.
2.2) Rejection and ostracising
In every community there is a
number of qualities whose possession or absence have immense consequences for
those involved. Those consequences may be that people are totally ostracised
from and rejected by their community. We propose that honour is derived from
characteristics that are more fundamental than those merely related to social
status.
First let us note that people are
rejected from their community for characteristics or deeds for which they bear
no real responsibility, e.g. the colour of their skin, a physical defect, a
certain birthmark, or because of having bewitched the crops. Rejecting people
in such reasons is called discrimination and not acceptable in most societies.
Apart from that, in all human
communities people are being ostracised and rejected for actions to which their
community attaches fundamental moral values.
For example, it is known that
European women who during the World War II fell in love and maintained a sexual
relationship with a German soldier – which they often regarded as a serious
engagement – on Liberation Day were dragged from their homes by their
neighbours, were publicly shaven and pushed through the streets as ‘jerry
whores’. Sometimes relatives of those women underwent the same fate (Diederichs
2008, Ericsson and Simonson 2005). In the same way families that had
collaborated with the German enemy were dealt with in the same way (Tames
2009). These groups of people were accused of having loose morals or treachery
or both.
Even after decades, people have
still difficulties in talking about the allegations and the things that
happened to them in their youth. The subject is taboo, which means that it is
still felt as a stigma, and exactly for that reason it is felt as dangerous. If
other people knew that …, they might start bullying them again. The quality
or action for which people risk being expelled from their community can be
summarised as ‘social misbehaviour’.
In present western societies
people are still stigmatised for social misbehaviour. In most communities an
(unjust) accusation of abuse of children is enough to ruin someone’s life. But
not only perpetrators are being stigmatised. Recent research among the
relatives of serious offenders has shown that even though they themselves were
totally innocent, they had to cope with feelings of shame and a stigma caused
by a member of their family:
“Bringing
dishonour and shame upon one’s family is a notion more commonly associated with
the Mediterranean and the Middle East […]. In our society, however, the ties
that bind kin together are strong enough for dishonour to flow from the actions
of one relative to another, and for a family to have a reputation which can be
damaged by the actions of one member. When those actions comprise some of the
gravest and most vilified crimes in our society, the whole family can be
tainted with the resulting stigma” (Condry 2007:61-2).
2.3) Social sanctions
After having committed serious
social misbehaviour an individual risks being exposed to social sanctions. Note
that in this sense honour is personal, but that the sanctions – depending on
the type of misbehaviour – may stretch to the extended family, consisting of
dozens of individuals.[2][2]
An individual who is considered
guilty of misbehaviour is no longer met with the normal respect. He or she is
no longer tolerated in community. The most serious social sanctions consist of
the following:
– no longer accepted in public
social life (coffeeshops)
– no longer invited by neighbours
and friends
– friends stay away,
– a shop is no longer visited,
– being fired immediately from
one’s job,
– being abused and spit at in the
street,
– being an unwanted guest on
feasts and celebrations
– none pays his last respects,
– an announced marriage or
engagement is cancelled,
– existing marriages come under
tension,
– being expelled from the village
(Ermers 2007:71; cf. e.g. also Chatelard 2003:222).
The most serious social sanctions
cover a complete social ostracisation of all members from a given family, men
and women alike. When problems occur among an immigrant family, the social
sanctions are likely to extend to their relatives abroad. Therefore it is
impossible to think that family honour is mainly a men’s business; on the contrary:
women are victims of honour loss as well.
In other words, judging and punishing entire families for the behaviour
of one member is a common phenomenon in human society.
One example is the following:
“Jane
experienced local children throwing eggs at her windows and tearfully described
the reaction of her neighbours: J[ane]: They just totally ignore me. They won’t
speak to me. You know, ‘she’s not worth bothering about. It’s like they’re
blaming me for what she’s done’. […] And sometimes I get people shouting
abuse at me. Telling me to f-off or go and live somewhere else, but not in them
words, with swear words in between” (Jane, daughter convicted of violent
offence) (Condry 2007:79-80).
Women too will be spit at in the
street when their son, daughter, cousin or niece is seriously misbehaving. Both
men and women therefore have great interest in preventing and halting the
sanctions. Jane’s experiences bear a strong resemblance to the experiences of a
Jordanian family:
“We were
the most prominent family, with the best reputation,” said Um Tayseer,
[Basma’s] mother. “Then we were disgraced. Even my brother and his family
stopped talking to us. No one would even visit us.[…]” And when a woman
like Basma […] is thought to have crossed the line, her family is ostracized,
with her eight sisters deemed unmarriageable by the neighbors, and her five
brothers confronted with taunts in the street. […] (Jehl 1999).
The social sanctions themselves
against an individual or a family thought guilty of misbehaviour can be
regarded as honour related violence.
Social sanctions such as
exclusion as a reaction to misbehaviour in no way are an exotic and strange
phenomenon. We already pointed at what happened to the so-called ‘jerry
whores’. On a smaller level it exists too: organisations and unions usually
have defined in their statutes types of misbehaviour for which members can be
expelled immediately. If the misbehaving member is not expelled from the
organisation there is a risk that all members be associated with the one
member’s deviant conduct.
The fear of losing honour and
being exposed to the social sanctions of ostracism and rejection can be
compared to an existential fear (see e.g. Williams e.a. 2005). Every individual
therefore makes great efforts for not being associated with serious
misbehaviour.
The question arises which type of
misbehaviour in the Middle East and Asia is considered so serious as to entail
the risk of being ostracised?
2.4) Misbehaviour
Every community has its own band
width: on the outer ends conservative and loose or free behaviour. Behaviour
that remains between the cultural width is by definition decent, it does not
lead to moral judgements and social sanctions. Nevertheless, behaviour on the
conservative or liberal extremes of the range is likely to be the subject of
gossip.
In the Middle East some of the
most serious form of misbehaviour someone can be accused of is that of being a
pimp or a pimp family. Such an accusation may come about in two ways:
1. Rape and deception. A man from
the A family rapes a woman from the B family, or he succeeded in having sexual
intercourse with her by making false promises and telling lies. By not acting
adequately against A, the B family gives the impression of approving A’s
behaviour. In other words: A makes B a ‘whore’, while B refrains from
appropriate actions. If B lets this situation be, the obvious conclusion is
that it is acceptable to B, which only a family of pimps would. Another point
is that B is not loyal to their own innocent daughter.
Note that A himself of course
commits serious misbehaviour in the first place; his misbehaviour can be
labelled as ‘lack of moral decency’. By seducing or raping B, he makes misuse
of the confidence families have in him as their neighbour; the womenfolk of the
entire village or quarter must be able to move about safely in the community.
For this reason, A is likely to lose his honour as well. But the only one who
is entitle to act against him is the B family: they have to make the claim
against him first. Only then B will receive help from the community, while A
and his relatives risk being subjected to social sanctions as well instead.
There is a second way of getting the label of ‘family of pimps’.
2. Extramarital sexual
intercourse. This happens when a woman or a girl from the B family takes the
initiative for having extramarital sexual intercourse. She makes herself a
whore and, as a consequence, her family a bunch of pimps. The same can be said
when a man agrees to being penetrated by another man.
Both types of misbehaviour have
an evident relationship with the moral sexual honour of a family.[3][3] Which indications the social environment
accepts as evidence for the conclusion that there has been extramarital sexual
intercourse is culturally defined. In other words: the indications vary per
community. In some communities men and women sit together publicly on parties
and feasts, in others the mere fact of being seen on the street talking to one
an other is considered inappropriate behaviour.
2.5) A definition of honour
Based upon the above, honour can
be defined as follows:
A. honour is an
individual’s or a family’s awareness that s/he, along with his/her family, is
accepted as a full member of the community (outside his family), the awareness
being based upon the ‘normal’ behaviour s/he experiences from the community.
What is meant by ‘respect’, is in
essence the normal behaviour the individual and his family feel entitled to,
based upon their status. If the respect is not shown for no apparent reason,
the individual (and their family) they feel hurt and may get angry.
But there is more to it. Because
people differ in status, they feel they are entitled to be treated with a certain
form of respect. If the form of respect is not in accordance with the
social status, they feel hurt too. Put otherwise: when others do not behave
respectful in the appropriate manner, it is felt as a type of rejection (more
about this later). The same holds for false accusations or insults.
But there is another perpective
to honour, namely that of those who judge:
B. honour is an individual’s
awareness that someone else, along with his/her family, is accepted as a full
member of the community (outside his family), this awareness being based on the
fact of not having committed serious misbehaviour.
This addition from the other
perspective means that human beings in normal situations treat other people
with the forms of respect due to their social status. But they will not do so
when they know that those individuals have committed serious social
misbehaviour.
When the individual realises
others are aware of his social misbehaviour, s/he can only feel shame. People
unconsciously apply certain techniques in order to deal with the stigma (cf.
Condry 2007:81 q.v.) There is no point in trying to pretend that one is an
‘accepted member of society’ when people around have stopped treating like one.
Moreover, many individuals find the misbehaviour despicable themselves as well
and understand the reactions of the community.
Thus the norms for honour or
possession of honour are in fact culturally determined criteria for
misbehaviour. These criteria are usually put down in the customary law (or
official law) and the normal rules of conduct of a given community. Individuals
and their families that comply with the norms and values possess honour are
being treated normally in accordance with their social status. The possession
of honour cannot be variable in the sense that it is possible to acquire ‘more
honour’ (contrary to Van Eck 2003).
Only when people already possess
honour their status makes sense. Whenever people have committed serious
misbehaviour, a high status is not enough to save their position within the
community. (Even though rich people may use their power to buy their way out or
pay people for keeping silent about misbehaviour.)
Loss of face of course is
different from loss of honour. Loss of face is the result of an action or an
incident which spoils the characteristics that are associated with a (high)
social status, or an ideal picture of
oneself people tend to show to outsiders (see also Goffmann 1959). That
characteristic may be damaged or lost for many different reasons, e.g. an
accident, illness, bankruptcy, a quarrel, a natural disaster, etc. For example,
when a family’s son does not have the intellectual capacities to follow his
father and grandfather as a physician, this can be considered loss of face for
the family. But none would say that it is loss of honour.
When coincidence is the cause of
loss of face, nobody is guilty. For example when someone drops a cup of coffee
from his table, this typically causes a temporary loss of face. However, if
another individual (or family) causes loss of face other than by accident (he
deliberately hits the other’s arm, so that the coffee spills), his behaviour is
considered an insult – and so is laughing at the person involved when he loses
face.
2.6) The connection between
honour and social status
As we have shown in the preceding
secions, honour and social status are far from identical. Nevertheless there is
a link between the two concepts.
Honour can be summarised as the
awareness of being accepted as a full member of the community, roughly say: as
a human being. People want to be ‘normally’ spoken to at home, greeted in the
street, served in a restaurant, etc. This is what we could call respect. People
who are accepted member of a community are entitled to respect, i.e. a normal
treatment in which their presence is noticed. Saying ‘hello’ in passing means
that one acknowledges the presence of the other. This is called tact or
etiquette.
We pointed out above that there
are different types of social status. Each type of status demands a certain
form of respect in accordance with that status. When people of unequal status
meet, just acknowledging the presence of the other will not be enough.
An interesting illustration of this form the protocols for the contacts between
common people and royal or presidential families; it is for example not
appropriate to say something like ‘hi, madam’ when meeting the queen. Not only
might this hurt the queen, everybody would consider this a lack of respect.
Mutatis mutandis people from a certain age, class, descent, or who occupy a
certain position expect others to behave in a specific manner, and they feel
hurt when not addressed appropriately, especially when there are witnesses
around. The expectations of how to behave to whom vary between cultures.
When one feels hurt because of
some else’s rudeness, in some cultures it is necessary to show a reaction. No
reaction means: ‘I agree with the insult’, or ‘I deserved this rude behaviour’,
or: what you say is true (‘I am a coward’). This means that a degree of
assertiveness to insulting behaviour is a characteristic – perhaps the only
characteristic – of a socalled ‘honour culture’. By reacting to the offence or
inappropriate behaviour, one makes clear that one in fact does possess honour. The
reaction does not have to be per se violent. People in some (sub)cultures feel
anger creeping up and some prepare for action when they are not appropriately
addressed or when they feel they are being insulted.[4][4]
Therefore, the characteristics of
social status do not constitute honour, they rather form part of an
individual’s or a family’s social worth, which others are not expected to
ignore.
2.7) Misbehaviour needs to remain
secret
Only after the serious
misbehaviour has become known in the community, an individual, along with his
family, is likely to be subjected to social sanctions. People and their
relatives who did commit serious social misbehaviour but succeed in covering it
up, will still be treated as ‘normal’. For example, European women who
maintained their relationships with German soldiers secret, were not humiliated
after Liberation Day and after the war they were able to continue their lifes
as they used to (Diederichs 2008). Of course, they told none about their
secret.
In other words, not the
misbehaviour itself, but the fact that it gets known in the social environment
– hours, days, months or years after the incident – causes loss of honour.
Misbehaviour the community is unaware about, is very likely to bring about
problems and conflicts within a family, but the family will do its utmost to
try and keep them secret.
For the individual as well as for
a family it is a matter of survival in their community to comply –
superficially – with the fundamental norms and values of the community. Because
of this indirect link between misbehaviour and loss of honour, families,
including immigrant families, may agree with certain deviant behaviour of their
relatives on the condition that it never gets known in the community.
2.8) Recovery of honour
After the serious misbehaviour
has become public, a family may end the social sanctions it is being exposed
to, by carrying out a specific action. In general this action involves an
action against the person that is held responsible for the misbehaviour or the
insult. As pointed out above, no reaction means: ‘We agree with the situation’.
We have seen above that, at least in relation to the moral code, the
responsible or guilty may be the one of following:
A. an individual from outside the
family
B. an individual within the
family.
In case of A, the responsible is
almost always a male who is accused with having raped a woman from another
family, or has deluded her into having sexual intercourse with her by telling
her lies and making false promises. Once the incident is known, her family
needs to react to this in an adequate manner. In some communities it is enough
to beat up the rapist or seducer, and a large fight between the families may
ensue. The victimised family, i.e. whose daughter was violated, may get help
from friends. Man may be raped as well, for them families will react to the
violator too. It happens that the rapist’s relatives acknowledge the crime, and
propose to buy off the consequences – possibly after mediation of the village council.
In other communities the only
adequate solution is that the rapist or seducer, depending on the
circumstances, is killed. For such cases of honour killing we have proposed the
label Honour Killing type I (Ermers 2007:121 q.v.).
In Honour Killing type I the
raped or deluded woman is innocent, so there is no real need to take actions
against her. However, as a result of the incident, she is considered stained
and impure. The stain can be cleansed if she marries, but her chances on a good
marriage are not very high.
We have seen thusfar that in B.
the responsible for the loss of the family’s honour may be either a man or a
woman, who is suspected of having willingly engaged in extramarital sexual
intercourse. (Men in this respect are suspected to have agreed to be penetrated
anally by another man.) Women who willingly agree to having extramarital sex
are not considered chaste. Chaste means: having the intention of
refraining from pre- or extramarital intercourse. Chastity is typically
considered the result of a ‘good’ upbringing, one of the obligations of a
‘decent’ family.
The relatives of this woman or
man will want (or rather need) to distantiate themselves from this woman or
this man. He or she has tainted the entire family (Tames 2009:187). The first
method of restoring honour is to marry him or her off. A women will then enter
another family. When a man marries, the ‘normal’ sexual intercourse will also
cleanse him. (Note that marrying someone off while the misbehaviour is still
unknown in the community does not restore honour, simply because honour is not
yet lost in that case. Finding a good spouse then is much easier.)
If marrying off is not feasible,
the individual is expelled (‘X is no longer our son’), but this needs to be
done in such a manner that the community is aware of the expulsion. The social
sanctions – and hence the loss of honour – continue as long as the deviant
family member is not expelled. Regarding expulsions among Moroccan immigrants
it is known that an expulsion only lasts a couple of years, after which the
expelled sometimes is reconciled with his or her family. There are indications
that expulsions among immigrants in the area from Egypt to Pakistan and Turkey
to Yemen have a more definitive character (see also Ginat 1997). An expulsion
is of course very dramatic and traumatic, but usually the effect is that the
expelled is no longer chased by his or her relatives.
In 1994, a 23
year old woman was raped and killed in Putten, a small town in the Netherlands.
Shortly after the crime, two men were arrested and sentenced to seven years of
imprisonment, even though they claimed they were innocent. Years after the
crime, a third suspect was found through an DNA-match in 2008, who at the time
was only 17 years old.
The new
suspect’s father, mr. Jan Pieper, declared in may 2008 on Dutch television that
he distantiated himself from his son, and that he would never visit him in
prison. Pieper and his wife had also paid excuses to the two men who had been
sentenced while innocent. After that, Pieper asked the media, neighbours and
acquaintances to leave him and his family in peace (www.nu.nl).
Even though the suspects parents
were totally innocent they apparently felt they were linked to the deviant
behaviour of their son, and found it necessary to speak out.
In some communities expulsion
from the family are not enough and, if there is no non-violent solution (such
as a marriage), the deviant relative needs to be killed. Those instances we
have labelled Honour Killing type II (Ermers 2007:121). Note that Honour
Killing type II should not be misunderstood as a punisment for (or ‘revenge’
against) the guilty, but a way of definitively distantiate oneself from him or
her. Honour Killings of type I and II cannot occur based upon false gossip;
there needs to be evidence for some kind of serious misbehaviour (see further).
Unlike some accounts,[5][5] the victim of Honour Killing type II, does
not need to be killed with a specific weapon, in a specific place (the market
place of the town), even though that may occur. A natural death, an accident or
suicide of the guilty will do too; after his or her death, the guilty
individual is gone definitively, and so is the stain (‘we never had a daughter
by the name of Aliya’). As a result, family honour will be considered restored
and social sanctions will stop:
“Before
my sister was killed,” Amal, the 18-year-old said, “I had to walk
with my eyes to the ground” (Jehl 1999).
There is no evidence for Honour
Killing II among Moroccan immigrant communities, even though of course there
are incidents of murder and manslaughter.[6][6]
Without doubt, blood revenge is a
type of honour related violence too, even though a family’s moral honour is not
at stake, but the suspicion of the other having killed, murdered or deliberate injured
an individual. A typical case of blood revenge goes as follows: After a member
of the A family has been killed by a member of B, A will react by killing a
member of B. The goal and the effect of the reaction is to demonstrate that
tiers cannot just inflict sorrow and damage to the A family, and that the
insult will not be taken. However, families are not free to choose whether or
not they will show a (violent) reaction: if A does not react in an appropriate
manner, the community will consider them a bunch of (disloyal) cowards.
Cowardness in this respect is considered an illustration of serious social
misbehaviour and is likely to be punished with social sanctions by the
community. Sometimes families succeed in reaching a non-violent solution by lengthy
negotiations. Publicly offering and acceptance of excuses usually are part of
such a solution.
2.9) Honour related violence
Based upon the above, there are
four types of honour related violence:
a. There are no specific
problems, but members of a given family, often women, are being protected,
sometimes in a tense and oppressive way, against dangers that lure in the
outside world. The goal of the protection is that none gets the chance to (i)
commit misbehaviour against the women or (ii) that the woman is protected from
committing mistakes. Violence in this context will remain within in the family.
b. There has been an incident and
violence within the family serves to (i) cover up the misbehaviour, i.e.
keeping it within the family or (ii) to prevent the misbehaviour from happening
again.
c. Violence that serves to show
that people may not harm a family’s integrity. In this context the violence is
directed to (someone from) another family, but it is not necessarily a public
action; a family may take secret actions against a rapist or seducer, when only
the two families involved are aware of the incident and obviously neither one
has anything to gain by making the incident public.
d. Violence that serves to show
that a family distantiates oneself from a deviant member. This type of violence
is a public signal, much like honour killing type I and blood revenge. The
motive only holds when the misbehaviour is known in the community and social
sanctions, such as ostracism, cannot be avoided anymore (cf. Ermers 2007b:19 in
Albrecht and Ermers 2007).
Misbehaviour related to honour
related violence is typically related to moral sexual behaviour. This means
that quarrels on chores, the family budget, showing respect to the parents,
divorce plans and school results are not part of it.
A black man,
an original of the Dutch Antilles (24), starts a relationship with Zeynep (16,
Turkish). Zeynep’s intellectual abilities are deficient, a fact which is known
to her parents. Eventually Zeynep cannot bear her secret any longer and she
decides to tell her mother. Her mother refrains from informing Zeynep’s father
and calls in the help of her nephews, who beat up the boyfriend.
Due to the
police gets involved, the nephews are arrested, and the victim tells about his
relationship with Zeynep. Now Zeynep’s father hears of the relationship too.
Zeynep is for her ‘own good’ taken to a shelter for battered women. After
having spent three months in the safe house, she wants to go home. Her parents
also miss her. She’s got nothing to be afraid about.
There is no ascending line from
category a to b, nor is there a connection between domestic violence and honour
killing. Whenever the motive is there, the pressure or violence belonging to
that category will occur. An example of an action from category b is the
restoration of the hymen. More important than the operation itself is the
preceding decision making process. Why is the family distrusting the girl to
the extent that they want the hymen to be examined? Some gynaecologists for
ethical reasons refuse to carry out such an operation. Others make up ‘honest’
reports about the condition of the hymen. In both ways they may endanger the
safety of the girl in question. Paradoxically the restoration of the hymen may
be of help in mending the relationships within the family.
As we are trying to point out in
this contribution, honour related violence is based upon emotional but logical
reasoning regarding guilt and responsibility for misbehaviour. When it is said:
‘Malika is the result of honour killing or honour related violence’, many will
think that Malika was killed or mistreated, because she, i.e. Malika, was
having an extramarital affair and she refused to limit the social damage, for
example by means of a marriage, an abortion or another solution.
Thus, speaking about honour
related violence in relation to a given victim thus may be damaging to a victim
or stain his or her memory. Therefore, as long as the motive for the violent
act is unclear, it is advised not to use these terms.
2.10) Family honour
We have seen above that in all
societies honour loss may inflicts family as a whole. Therefore, every
individual member of a family has interest in the following:
1. family members should not
commit misbehaviour (a-b)
2. misbehaviour remains a secret
for the community (b)
3. the family takes appropriate
action (c), especially when the misbehaviour is known in the community.
If in relation to loss of honour
a severe action such as murder is being undertaken does not depend on the head
of family alone. The decisions are being taken in very different manners. A
mother may punish her daughter when she is late from school (a). A girl may
tell her parents she knows her sister is seeing boys on the school yard (b).
Brothers and cousins protect their female family members – if they act too
harsh they are usually corrected by their parents.
This implies that a perpetrator,
even if s/he is legally a minor, not only blindly follows instructions, he or
she has also his own interest in taking the (violent) action. Nevertheless, an
individual cannot undertake a crime like murder (honour killing type I or II)
on his or her own initiative. If the perpetrator has not acted adequately – or
in a fit of anger – he will cause his family sorrow and social damage. After
such an incident, his family may condone or reject a deed afterwards. Rejection
of the action usually implies that the perpetrator is expelled from the family,
and left alone in prison, which occurs more often than many people think.
2.11) Gossip and slander
Gossip and slander do play an
important role in the whole process of losing honour and the ensuing social
sanctions, but neither of them is the cause of honour loss. The real cause is,
as pointed out, misbehaviour. Gossip, in brief, means that people anonymously
discuss alleged misbehaviour of others. When a family that is gossiped about
hears the stories, it is forced to investigate the allegations (cf. Ermers
2007:143, see also Brenninkmeijer et alii 2009:117).
If the gossip appears to be based
on truth (‘I saw Meryem’s daughter behind the railway station with a guy
yesterday afternoon’) then the family needs to react to prevent social
sanctions from happening. Being the subject of gossip is part of those
sanctions. A family may defend itself against vague gossip by changing its
behaviour. Because (false) gossip by its nature is very vague, a family may not
know what it has done wrong and how exactly to change their behaviour.
If, on the other hand, the gossip
is false and deliberate, the appropriate term is slander. Slander is
insult and malicious damaging of a person, sometimes anonymous. In case of
slander a family will take action against the source, but it may also feel
itself obliged to make changes in its behaviour.
A person who spreads slander
commits a form of social misbehaviour. In most legal systems, including those
based on religious principles, slander is punishable by law. When in a given
case gossip plays a role, the veriacity of the gossip needs to be investigated.
If the gossip is obviously false, the family can be rehabilitated and the
person in question needs no longer fear any violence.
3) Family ties
3.1) The family as a social unit
Family honour per se is related
to ‘the family’. In almost every case family relationships need to be examined
carefully. Or the other way around: it is impossible to draw the conclusion
that family honour is at stake, without having paid due attention to family
relations.
The larger part of the world’s
human population may be determined as one type or other of family culture. Also
the term group culture is sometimes used, but this is misleading since the
group in question is always the family in one way or the other. The family usually
consists of the extended family, i.e. those descending from the same
grandfather (or grandmother), but often the common descent is traced further.
Some people addition identify with their clan and tribe.
Having said this, it is a cliché
that North West Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand
are purely individualistic cultures. Even though in these areas the adult
individual is to a very large extent free in his movements vis-à-vis his
extended family, s/he is encouraged by his environment to engage in a
monogynous (or monogamous) stable, longterm relationship and obligations with a
nuclear family. The individual is bound by the interests of that nuclear family
and cannot take any decisions contrary to the interests of its members. Very
few people want to stay alone all their lifes.
The members of an extended family
in the Middle East feel strongly attached to one another by mutual, affection,
respect and confidence (but everybody of course has his preferences for certain
people). This ideal picture of a loving, caring family is also presented to the
community. Sometimes it is contended that in a family culture the individual is
less important than the family, but in fact the interests of the individual are
considered to be identical with those of the entire family. Of course this
cannot be always the case. Nevertheless, in most parts of the world the
individual needs his family in order to survive; society is rarely fit for
people who try to stay all by themselves.
3.2) Family and hierarchy
A family is a kindred group of
people which is kept together by bonds of mutual affection and confidence.
In addition to the affective
ties, within a large family there will be a type of hierarchy and division of
tasks. Without a hierarchy and a division of tasks the family would, much like
other groups of people, fall apart. This actually happens in times of war when
individual members are forced left to take care of themselves.
In the Middle East the hierarchy
follows the male line, and the grandfather – at least nominally – is the head
of the family. This system is called patriarchate. The head is held responsible
for his family in the community. The main tasks of a family are the following:
1. protection of all members
against calamities from outside
2. protection of all members
against mistakes and errors by a good education and correction.[7][7]
The tasks of men and women are in
essence derived from these main tasks. Women have important tasks in keeping
the family united. To the tasks of men belongs that they actively defend their
family’s interests in the community, i.e. the outside world. Some may adopt a
macho-like pose, which may develop into a violent and short-tempered attitude.
It is not always clear how the actual relationships within a family are; the
stereotypical grandfather is not always the one who in reality is ‘in charge’,
nor may ‘brothers oppress their sisters’. Moreover, special attention must be
paid to the role of the women within a family. When analysing a case, an elaborate
family scheme is usually of great help.
The hierarchy and division of
tasks regarding protection of family members may degerenerate into misuse of
power and oppression of the weak members within a family, especially women, but
it needs to be stressed that this is not the rule in all families.
4) Engagement, marriage and
divorce
4.1) The making of a marriage
Many proble
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