Another disgusting example of religious stupidity.
---
Turkey faces battle to stamp out "honor killings"
By Gareth JonesThu Apr 6, 10:45 PM ET
Fatma's family wanted her killed because they said she was having an
adulterous affair while her husband was away doing his military service.
Returning home, the husband preferred to believe his wife's
protestations of innocence, but the couple faced ostracism from people
in their village who also believed the woman had sullied the family's
honor and should pay the ultimate price.
Helped by a women's support group which feared for Fatma's (not her real
name) life, the couple were resettled with new identities in Diyarbakir,
the largest city in Turkey's poor, mainly Kurdish southeast where they
now live.
Some are less fortunate. Experts say about 70 women fall victim to
so-called "honor killings" in Turkey every year, mostly in the
southeast. The true figure may be much higher.
"There are no accurate figures for honor killings. Villages often
support a decision by family elders to kill a woman. Such killings can
be passed off as something else, like suicide," said Naime Kardas of the
Ka-Mer group which helped Fatma.
Women may be killed for adultery or extra-marital pregnancy -- often the
consequence of rape by a neighbor or family member -- for seeking a
divorce or even for simply being seen outside unaccompanied by a male
relative or with her head uncovered.
There are signs that Turkey's government, police and non-government
organizations are starting to work more effectively to combat this
crime, which badly tarnishes the European Union candidate's image as it
struggles to improve its human rights record.
NEW IDENTITY PAPERS
Ka-Mer is helping to set up similar women's centers in the southeast,
complete with telephone hot lines.
Special "intervention" teams grouping women activists and
representatives of the police, local government and the mosques are
being set up to help save women and, if necessary, to resettle them with
new identity papers in other parts of Turkey.
In the conservative southeast where religion remains strong, clerics
have told the faithful in Friday sermons that honor killings are not
sanctioned by the Koran, Islam's holy book.
Under Turkey's new penal code approved last year, those found guilty of
honor killings now face life sentences. In the past, judges have often
shown leniency toward men who killed wives, daughters or sisters for
reasons of "honor."
A man who killed his wife and a taxi-driver for having an affair a few
years ago was jailed for just two years, said Aytekin Sir, an expert on
honor killings at Diyarbakir's Dicle University. Today the man would
face 18 years in jail.
Although welcome, tougher laws barely begin to tackle the deep social
and cultural roots of honor killings, the expression of a rigidly
patriarchal society which sees women as commodities to be used or cast
away as men see fit.
"It is so hard to change people's mentality. It will take many years,"
Sir, a psychiatrist, told Reuters.
"We have to try to solve the problem through education, especially of
women," he said.
More than half the women in southeast Turkey are illiterate. Many are
Kurds who speak little or no Turkish and are entirely dependent
economically on their menfolk.
MORE SUICIDES
The tougher penal code may be having unintended results, Sir said, with
more women being forced by their families to commit suicide to spare
their male relatives a lifetime in jail.
"Women may be forced to eat rat poison. Or they may be locked away in a
room and put under heavy emotional pressure to end their lives," he said.
There are also fears that children are increasingly being used to kill
women since they face lighter penalties if caught.
Ka-Mer fears Turkey's largely male, conservative-minded judiciary may
hamper efforts to combat honor killings.
"The law has changed, but you don't see it yet in the courts when
verdicts are handed out. Judges don't always follow the new laws, they
follow their own feelings too," said Kardas.
Every state body should practise positive discrimination in favor of
women, Kardas said, noting that policemen sometimes tell women who
suffer abuse just to put up with their lot.
The findings of a survey conducted by Sir in the villages and towns of
southeast Turkey last year make for grim reading.
Asked what should happen to a woman guilty of adultery, nearly 40
percent of those polled said she should be killed -- by far the most
popular punishment recommended, ahead of divorce or such penalties as
having her nose cut or hair shaved.
"There was no difference between the answers of the men and the
uneducated women in the poll. Only educated women believed the woman
should not face punishment," Sir said.
Experts say honor killings have become a bigger problem in recent years
because of large-scale migration to towns and cities, accelerated by
fighting between Kurdish rebels and Turkish security forces in the
southeast.
"These people brought the mentality of small villages into the big
cities," said Sir.
Ka-Mer remains undaunted by the scale of the task ahead.
All 31 of the women who applied to the center for help in 2005 are still
alive. More plays, films and books on the problem are appearing and the
Turkish press has stepped up its coverage.
More male relatives and members of the public are helping to put
endangered women in touch with Ka-Mer, Kardas said.
"There are signs that the younger generation is different, that they
will not kill their daughters for perceived violations of the family
'honor'," said Sir.
---
http://tinyurl.com/op8ro
--
John Hachmann aa #1782
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
-Voltaire
Contact - Throw a .net over the .com
.
|
