US Domestic Violence Claims Twice More Lives Than Pakistan Honor Killings

[RiazHaq]

http://www.riazhaq.com/2016/10/us-domestic-violence-claims-twice-more.html
In 2013, 869 women became victims of “honor killings” in Pakistan, according to Canadian Professor Judy Haiven. Compare this to the United States, where 1600 women were killed by their male partners or husbands in the same year, according toUS-based Violence Policy Center. Unlike domestic violence deaths in America, Pakistani honor killings make regular headlines. A recent example is the global media coverage of the killing of Qandeel Baloch who gained fame as a Pakistani social media celebrity.




In a letter to Toronto Star newspaper in June 2014, Professor Haiven wrote:

"Maybe the women wanted to leave the marriage, or had found a new partner, but clearly the men felt betrayed and dishonored by their partners and killed them. The media are quick to target women murders in Muslim-dominated countries, but maybe the media should also look at the facts in the U.S. (and Canada) as well."

Regardless of the intent of the western media and Pakistani westernized elite, it is heartening to see that Pakistan parliament has responded to the scourge of "honor killings" by enacting new legislation to stiffen the penalties for the perpetrators of this crime.

Previously, killers could be pardoned by a victim's family to avoid a jail term under Qisas and Diyat laws. Now forgiveness will only spare them the death penalty. The perpetrator convicted of honor killing will have serve a mandatory minimum jail term of 25 years.

When I tweeted out the news of the new legislation, there were many who liked it and retweeted it. However, I also received responses from a gentleman who was clearly more interested in attacking Muslims. Here are some tweets and responses from this exchange:

Riaz Haq @haqsmusings: BBC News - 'Honour killings': #Pakistan closes loophole allowing killers to go free. #QandeelBaloch #honorkillingshttp://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37578111

Bryan Valvana @BryanValvana: Maybe most people never knew the loophole existed because muslims like @Deanofcomedy and @lsarsour never criticized or said a word about it.

RH: @BryanValvana @Deanofcomedy @lsarsour Killers often go free in #US and #Europe. Neither western nor #Pakistan laws are perfect.

BV: @haqsmusings @Deanofcomedy @lsarsour Right. A loophole letting honor killers go free is "imperfect." Not "sick, barbaric & evil."

RH: @BryanValvana #Pakistan fixed its law. Canadian Prof Judy Haivan says more #honorkillings in #US than in #Pakistanhttps://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters_to_the_editors/2014/06/02/honour_killings_in_the_west.html

BV: @haqsmusings That's an opinion, not a fact. That's also totally ridiculous. How do you believe this self serving garbage?

RH: @BryanValvana unlike your bigoted garbage, Canadian Prof backs up her opinion with US government data on domestic violence deaths in America

BV: @haqsmusings People who commit domestic violence go to prison, there's no loophole that allows them to go free. The comparison is insane.

RH: @BryanValvana Not always. Besides, any jail time is often too little, too late for the victims.

BV: @haqsmusings No one is arguing that. Classic straw man. You've successfully derailed the conversation. Transparent tactic.

The above twitter conversation should give my readers a flavor of how even a good act in Pakistan gets attacked as part of the Islamophobes' intense campaign against all things Pakistan and Muslim.

What is often forgotten is that until 1977, the California Penal Code stated that wives charging husbands with criminal assault and battery must suffer more injuries than commonly needed for charges of battery.

Also ignored is the fact that Pakistanis themselves take seriously the issue of violence against women. Pakistani filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy has been amply awarded by both Pakistani and international awards for her work to highlight the problem.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Islamophobia Industry

Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy Wins Oscar

Beheading in Buffalo: Domestic Violence or Honor Killing?

Honor Killings in India

Qandeel Baloch: Leading a Social Revolution in Pakistan?

Silent Social Revolution in Pakistan

Arif Hasan's Website

The Eclipse of Feudalism in Pakistan

Social and Structural Transformations in Pakistan

Malala Moment: Profiles in Courage-Not!

Urbanization in Pakistan Highest in South Asia

Rising Economic Mobility in Pakistan

Upwardly Mobile Pakistan



http://www.riazhaq.com/2016/10/us-domestic-violence-claims-twice-more.html

 

[EAK]

very well written.. but people see what they want to see... research nicely done by the way..

 

[Russell]

You haven't compared like for like....

You've compared honor killings with victims of domestic violence.

- 1600 American women are killed as a result of domestic violence annually out of pop of ~325mil
- 5000 Pakistani women are killed as a result of domestic violence annually out of pop of ~200mil

The "Human Rights Watch," a New York-based international non-governmental organisation that conducts research and advocacy on human rights, had estimated in 2009 that between 70 and 90 percent of women in Pakistan had suffered some form of abuse.

The NGO's study had revealed that about 5,000 Pakistani women were being killed every year from domestic violence, with thousands of others maimed or disabled.

Source: https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/102405-Women-have-little-relief-from-harassment-despite-laws-in-world

I don't have an axe to grind here - this is not an issue just for Pakistan, but the subcontinent and women in developing countries on the whole. The crime itself is bad enough, but the real difference between the developed world and our nations is what happens to the perpetrators. Far too often, there is no justice for the family of the victims.

The statistics below don't make for pleasant reading for Pakistan, India, Bangladesh or Iran -

Dowry deaths are common in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Iran. India reports the highest total number of dowry deaths with 8,391 reported in 2010, 1.4 deaths per 100,000 women. Adjusted for population, Pakistan, with 2,000 reported such deaths per year, has the highest rate of dowry death at 2.45 per 100,000 women.

 

[RiazHaq]

You haven't compared like for like....

You've compared honor killings with victims of domestic violence.

- 1600 American women are killed as a result of domestic violence annually out of pop of ~325mil
- 5000 Pakistani women are killed as a result of domestic violence annually out of pop of ~200mil



I don't have an axe to grind here - this is not an issue just for Pakistan, but the subcontinent and women in developing countries on the whole. The crime itself is bad enough, but the real difference between the developed world and our nations is what happens to the perpetrators. Far too often, there is no justice for the family of the victims.

The statistics below don't make for pleasant reading for Pakistan, India, Bangladesh or Iran -

There seems to be huge disparity between the figures you're quoting and those from Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) that keeps track of domestic violence:


The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan report said prosecution rates for domestic violence and sexual offences were low, with women frequently too afraid to report the crimes or being intimidated into withdrawing complaints.


It recorded more than 900 rapes and sexual assaults in 2015, 279 instances of domestic violence, 143 of burning, 833 kidnappings and 777 suicides and attempted suicides.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...un-islamic-law-against-domestic-a6969311.html

(WOMENSENEWS)–The dramatic finale of the FX series “The People vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story” aired this week after topping television ratings for over a month. The Oscar-winning documentary about an honor killing, “A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness,” recently aired on HBO to critical acclaim.

One was set in Brentwood, a suburb of Los Angeles. The other was set in Punjab, Pakistan. One is called a domestic violence homicide. The other is called an honor crime.

A round-up of statistics from the Violence Policy Center, Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Institute of Justice and the Center for American Progress found that more than 18,000 U.S. women were killed in this country by intimate partners between 2003 and 2014. In the U.S., more than 22 percent of women will experience an extreme act of violence at the hands of an intimate partner in her lifetime, according to the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Why do we not call these acts of violence in this country honor crimes?

Human Rights Watch defines honor crimes as “acts of violence, usually murder, committed by male family members against female family members who are perceived to have brought dishonor upon the family” and defines those family members as “husband, father, son, brother or cousin.” There are 5,000 honor crimes each year in the world, according to the site, mostly in the Middle East and South Asia. In Pakistan alone, there are 1,000 honor killings every year.

But there is a common nefarious defense by perpetrators that links these cases of violence against women in the U.S and those acts called honor crimes in the Middle East and South Asia.

In both arenas, the woman who transgresses the boundaries of what men will accept has to be punished. And the men doing the punishing are from her domestic world.

In both domestic violence and honor crimes, male relatives and/or intimate partners rape, beat, psychologically abuse and kill.

Critique of Western Discourse

The 2013 book “Do Muslim Women Need Saving?,” by Columbia University anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod, shows how Western discourse on honor crimes tends to present them as problems of distant Middle Eastern, South Asian or Islamic “cultures.”

Indeed, in the U.S., anti-Islam activists such as Pamela Geller frequently stereotype Muslim men as so obsessed with female obedience that they kill women on any suspicion that the women have dishonored them.

But such acts are prevalent here too, perpetrated by men of all religions. A Massachusetts man was sentenced to life for stabbing his wife because he found a text message on her phone that he thought was a sign of an affair. A Texas man was indicted on charges of beating his pregnant girlfriend because he thought the baby wasn’t his. An Illinois man was convicted of strangling and knifing his girlfriend because he thought she was cheating on him.

In her new book, “Adultery: Infidelity and the Law,” Deborah Rhode, a professor at Stanford University in California, confirms that “suspicion of adultery is a frequent cause of domestic violence and the primary motivating factor in a majority of cases of homicide of wives killed by husbands.”

Certainly there are differences within and between societies and regions of the world, in terms of both the frequency of the crime and the social support and legal recourse available to women.

http://womensenews.org/2016/04/not-so-far-away-why-u-s-domestic-violence-is-akin-to-honor-crimes/

 

[VCheng]

You haven't compared like for like....

You've compared honor killings with victims of domestic violence.

There are no reliable figures for domestic violence in Pakistan. It is likely that the figures are vastly under-reported.