Promising Democracy, Imposing Theocracy:
Gender-Based Violence and the US War on Iraq
Part IV. Violence against Women within Families
"It is not a democracy and an open society where
a man can talk about politics without anyone
threatening him. Democracy is when a woman can talk
about her lover without being killed."
—Saud M. El Sabah63
"Honor Killing"
One form of gender–based violence that has increased dramatically in Iraq since the US invasion is "honor killing."64 These murders are usually perpetrated by male relatives acting to restore "family honor" tarnished by women's "immoral" behavior. "Honor killings" resemble so–called "crimes of passion" in US, European, and Latin American jurisprudence in that sentencing is not based on the crime, but on the feelings of the perpetrator. For example, in 1999, a Texas judge sentenced a man to four months in prison for murdering his wife and wounding her lover in front of their 10–year–old child.65 As in an "honor killing," adultery was viewed as a mitigating factor in the case. But while individualistic societies, such as the US, tend to locate honor in the individual, communities that suffer "honor killings" vest honor in the family, tribe, or clan. "Honor killings" are therefore often reluctantly condoned as necessary for the greater good of the community—sometimes even by those who are grief–stricken by the woman's death. In the ethical and legal framework that condones "honor killings" there is an inversion of the relationship between perpetrator and victim as understood in most formal legal systems, including international human rights law. The woman who is killed (along with anyone who tries to defend her) is considered the guilty party because she has tarnished the honor of her family. In contrast, her killer, who is the dishonored party, is seen as the victim.
Islamists claim that "honor killing" is a religious obligation. However, these crimes are not condoned by either the Koran or the Hadith (the sayings and doings of Mohammed). Rather, they are rooted in customary law that pre–dates Islam and Christianity. The notion of family honor has been maintained and deployed by Islamists because it embodies their social vision. "Honor killings" punish women who make autonomous decisions about issues such as marriage, divorce, and whether and with whom to have sex, and force men to conform to gender norms of heterosexuality and marriage. For example, in 2005, the Badr militia began a program of surveillance of unmarried men over the age of 30, threatening the men with violence if they did not get married. Furthermore, because entire communities are called to enforce the ethic of family honor, the framework provides a powerful means of social control over potential victims and perpetrators alike—in other words, over everyone. For example, the Badr militia has ordered male relatives of gay Iraqis to murder their gay family member in the name of honor—or face murder themselves.66
Honor under Occupation
While "honor killing" may be committed within the "private sphere" of the family, its increase under US occupation demonstrates that—like other human rights violations—the prevalence of "honor killing" is influenced by broader social forces and institutions in the public sphere. In Iraq, the rise in "honor killing" under US occupation has multiple causes, including some which stem directly from US policy:
The US has empowered Islamist political parties whose clerics promote "honor killing" as a religious duty.67 As Yanar Mohammed explained, "Once the religious parties came to power, Iraqi men began hearing in the mosques that it was their duty to protect the honor of their families by any means. It is understood that this entails killing women who break the rules."68
The US destroyed the Iraqi state, including much of the judicial system, leaving people more reliant on conservative tribal authorities to settle disputes and on unofficial "religious courts" to mete out sentencing, including "honor killings."
Poverty–inducing economic policies, such as the 2003 US decision to fire all public–sector workers (40 percent of whom were women), have also contributed to the rise in "honor killings." Increased poverty has made people more dependent on tribal structures for jobs, housing, and other scarce resources and compelled more women into polygamous, forced, and abusive marriages, where they are at greater risk of "honor killing."
- While the US saw fit to violate international law by overturning most of Iraq's legal system, it maintained Article 130 of the penal code, which provides vastly reduced sentences for "honor killings" (as little as six months as opposed to life imprisonment, which is the minimum sentence for murder).69
Although the US is obligated as the occupying power to protect Iraqis' human rights, including the prevention and prosecution of "honor killing, " it has not done so. Official negligence promotes "honor killing" because perpetrators are confident that they will not be prosecuted.
Women who are attacked by men outside of their family are considered to have shamed their families. For that reason, the overall rise in rape and kidnapping under US occupation has elicited a rash of "honor killings." In October 2004, Iraq's Ministry of Women's Affairs revealed that more than half of the 400 reported rapes since the US invasion resulted in the murder of rape survivors by their families.
The detention of women by US and Iraqi forces exposes women to the threat of "honor killing" once they are released. Extensive documentation of the sexualized torture of detainees by US forces in Iraq confirms the widely–held assumption that any woman who is arrested is also raped, which may be considered grounds for "honor killing."
The Culture Card: Religion as an Excuse for Violence against Women
Despite the many ways that US policies have contributed to the increase in "honor killing" in Iraq, most people in the US continue to view these crimes as an invariable part of Iraqi, Arab, or Muslim "culture." For instance, US journalist Kaye Hymowitz defines "honor killing" as part of the "inventory of brutality" committed by men against women in the "Muslim world," railing against "the savage fundamentalist Muslim oppression of women."70
Hymowitz echoes a commonly held assumption, namely that gender–based violence in the Middle East derives from Islam. Identifying Islam or "Muslim culture" as the source of violence against women serves to dehumanize Muslims and justify US violence against them. It also deflects attention from factors (such as politics, economics, and militarism) that influence the prevalence of gender–based violence, and obscures the ways that US actions have exacerbated conditions that give rise to violence against women.
In fact, culture alone explains very little. Like all human behavior, "honor killing" does have a cultural dimension, but like culture itself, "honor killing" is shaped by social factors (such as poverty) and discourses (such as women's rights) that change—and can be changed—in ways that can either help combat or promote "honor killing." Culture is a context, but not a cause or a useful explanation for violence, whether in Iraq or anywhere else.
It makes much more sense to examine gender—a system of power relations whose number one enforcement mechanism is recourse to violence against women. There is nothing "Muslim" about that system, except that its Muslim proponents, like their Jewish, Christian, and Hindu counterparts, use religion to rationalize women's subjugation. In fact, shifting the focus from culture to gender reveals a system of power that is nearly universal. A 2005 Amnesty International Report on the mass killings of women in Guatemala could easily refer to Iraq when it describes a "notable sense of insecurity that women in Guatemala feel today as a result of the violence and the murders in particular. The resulting effect of intimidation carries with it a perverse message: women should abandon the public space they have won at much personal and social effort and shut themselves back up in the private world, abandoning their essential role in national development."71 This passage captures the intent of Iraq's Islamists, who have little in common with the perpetrators of feminicide in Guatemala, other than a rigid adherence to a gendered system of power.
"Culture is a context, but not a cause
or a useful explanation for violence,
whether in Iraq or anywhere else."
63Quoted in Azam Kamguian, "The Lethal Combination of Tribalism, Islam, & Cultural Relativism," Jan. 17–19, 2003, http://www.middleastwomen.org/html/combination.htm (accessed Jan. 29, 2007).
64Like "crime of passion," the term "honor killing" communicates the perspective of the perpetrator, and thereby carries an implicit justification. Some women's rights advocates therefore prefer the terms "feminicide," "shame killings," or "so–called honor killings."
65See paragraph 35 of Integration of the Human Rights of Women and the Gender Perspective: Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, submitted in accordance with Commission on Human Rights resolution 2001/49, Jan. 31, 2002, UN Doc. E/CN.4/2002/83.
66Jennifer Copestake, "Gays Flee Iraq as Shia Death Squads Find a New Target," The Observer, June 8, 2006.
67For reference to Sistani's fatwa, see: Doug Ireland, "Shia Death Squads Target Gay Iraqis," Gay City News, March 23–29, 2006, http://www.gaycitynews.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=
17008058&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=568864&rfi=8 (accessed Dec. 11, 2006).
68Interview with Yanar Mohammed, April 25, 2006.
69American Bar Association Iraq Legal Development Project, "The Status of Women in Iraq: An Assessment of Iraq's De Jure and De Facto Compliance with International Legal Standards," July, 2005.
70Kay S. Hymowitz, "Why Feminism is AWOL on Islam," City Journal, Winter 2003, http://www.city–journal.org/html/13_1_why_feminism.html (accessed Dec. 11, 2006).
71Amnesty International, "No Protection, No Justice: Killings of Women in Guatemala," June 9, 2005, http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR340172005 (accessed Jan. 29, 2007).