Deep Roots: Honor Killings Reflect Global Problem of Violence Against Women

Five women were buried alive in the tribal region of Balochistan in Pakistan and only a national outcry led to the arrest of the persons involved -- months after the incident had actually happened. The killings had even been defended as "tribal tradition" by some senior members of the Senate, the Parliament's Upper House.

What "crimes" had these women committed? Three of the women were teenagers who wanted to marry men of their choice. The other two - the mother and an aunt of one of the girls - supported their decision. The women were abducted by men from their tribe, shot and thrown into a ditch while still alive; the older women were buried along with them for protesting, according to a report by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC).

Across the eastern border in India, a region that was still some days celebrating the Olympic glory of its homegrown pugilist -- Vijender Kumar's bronze medal -- was recently shrouded by the hushed whispers of another honor killing. Two girls were killed on their return from a late evening outing, escorted by unidentified men. The entire village is believed to have watched as both were assaulted with sticks and axes, hauled to the cremation ground half-dead and set on fire by their family for the sake of "honor" -- quite ironically on Diwali, a day celebrated as the festival of lights in many parts of the country. But what was even more shocking was the evidence of the system's casual acceptance of this family's act. Not even a "First Information Report" was registered until a fortnight later.

Numbers of women killed frequently go unreported, the perpetrators unpunished as the concept of family honor tacitly justifies the act in the eyes of the immediate community. And while such incidents elicit attention due to the intrigue and horror attached to them as some primordial custom practiced by certain sequestered communities, the fact is that this form of violence is just a part of a much larger problem of violence against women and an issue that transcends cultures and religions. Complicity by other women in the family and the community only helps strengthen the notion of women as property and the perception that violence against family members is a family matter and outside of the judicial and public domain. But at the center of the problem of violence against women is the imbalance of gender relations that assume men to be superior to women. And against the background of this subordinate status of women, much of gender violence is considered normal and enjoys social sanction.  

When women are considered vessels of family, clan and tribal or community honor, they will almost always be the direct victims of crimes against a community or violence between groups. And one does not have to look too far for evidence of these manifestations of violence in the public sphere, tacitly supported by state and society either by directly perpetrating it or rarely taking proactive measures to curb it and punish the guilty.

In October, the Orissa government in eastern India placed six policemen under suspension for misconduct and negligence of duty in connection with the rape of a nun two months prior, in August, during violence that had consumed the district of Kandhamal, killing nearly 35 people on the discovery of the murder of a Hindu religious leader. Despite a First Information Report filed the very next day, the result of the investigative report and medical findings were not filed for weeks and investigations began only a month after reports started appearing in the media. Police officials claimed they were busy dealing with the law-and-order situation in the district, preventing them from looking into the matter. That the rape of a woman was not considered as much a part of the violence at the time and was sidelined in the face of larger "law and order" concerns is a reminder of not just the manner in which rape and violence against women is perceived even by protectors and upholders of the legal system itself but that it is an accepted collateral of violence of this kind.

Only recently did the West Bengal court (in eastern India) award life imprisonment to two Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) activists - major coalition partners of the ruling Left Front government in the state - for the 2006 rape and murder of a teenage girl. The girl was among those protesting land acquisition for a car project in her native region of Singur. While the company withdrew their project from Singur earlier this year in the face of continuing protests against land acquisition, the teenager's charred body was recovered from what were once premises of the project in December 2006. Initially the government had called foul and blamed the death on conspiracy theorists. There have been whispers that this perhaps was only one of several cases of sexual assaults against women during the course of the agitation.

And in this hierarchical structure of gender violence, women from the lower castes of Indian society are even more vulnerable. By virtue of their position in the social structure they are the ones that find themselves the most vulnerable to exploitation of all kinds, while assaults are carried out with impunity with the knowledge that avenues for redress are even fewer and farther in between. Documented evidence and narratives by several human rights groups indicate that sexual abuse and other forms of violence against these women are used as tools for teaching political "lessons" for what is perceived as rebellion or attempts at dislodging the old, existent social order. Threatened by sexual exploitation of various kinds, these women have also been arrested and raped in custody as a means of punishing their male relatives both by the law enforcers themselves or powerful men within their communities.

Many women learn to accept violence very early in life. The family itself socializes them to accept predetermined social relations expressed in unequal division of labor between the sexes and control over the allocation of resources. And it is within the so-called secure walls of the home that women, very often, are most exposed to violence as they grow up watching the violence perpetrated against the other women in the household by the male members of the family. These violent actions are often closely linked to the concept of a woman as property and dependent on a male protector be it father, husband or son.  

Despite the recognition of gender-based violence as a human rights violation, which also includes "violence perpetrated or condoned by the state," a large percentage of women continue to be unprotected against it -- whether it be in the context of the family, the community or the state. What is even more tragic is that at every point key social institutions not only fail to be critical of the violence but, in fact, play their role in legitimizing and maintaining the violence. And even as women find their own voice within these spaces, sometimes accepting the violence or negotiating space within it, adding another dimension to their condition are the more passive and insidious forms of violence that work in tandem -- like sex selective abortions, sustained nutritional deprivation and delayed health care for female infants, or the unequal allocation of household resources detrimental to the health of the girl child.