Honor Killings

There was a report on NPR the other day that made me literally sick to my stomach.  There are tribes in Iraq that practice "honor killings".  The men of the family can kill a woman if she has disgraced the family.  In the story they talk about a 16 year old girl who was kidnapped.  The kidnappers threatened to rape her and kill her if her brother did not quit the police force.  The brother quit and the girl was returned but because having sex outside of marriage, rape or consensual, brings shame on the family and she could have been raped she was shot by her cousin.  Honor killings are common and are rarely investigated by the police.  They are also used as a cover for domestic violence.  It aggravates me because we are over there "liberating" the Iraqi people but who exactly are we "liberating", obviously not the women.


Jennifer

Jennifer is a busy working mother of two who, along with her husband, has chosen to unschool her children. She currently blogs about her experience with the challenges and fun of unschooling along with her love of crafting and cooking at HarmonicMama.com.

4 thoughts on “Honor Killings

  • December 9 at 7:59 pm
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    No, see, I think you have misunderstood… we aren’t liberating the Iraqi people. We are there to liberate the Iraqi oil. Big difference! 😉

    Seriously though, I do wish that things like this made the news more often. Maybe it might help to wake people up as to how much so-called “liberating” we are actually getting accomplished!

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  • December 25 at 12:29 am
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    omg, that’s just disgusting and heartbreaking. 🙁

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  • May 31 at 6:16 pm
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    You know a women is killed every other day in the state of PA by an abuser. In addition the leading cause of death for a pregnant woman in the U.S. is murder by a current or former intimate partner. So this is not just something that happens in the Middle East or a third world country. This is something that happens every day here in the United States.

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  • June 1 at 12:41 pm
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    I do definately understand that and abuse and violence is unacceptable to me in any contry/culture. The part of this story that really bothered me was that this poor girl had been through this horrible tramatic experiance and was being relesed to her family where, in my opinion, she should have been met with love and compassion but instead was met with exicution. How terrifying and horrible for that poor girl.

    Reply

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