In the wake of an 8-year-old girl who died from internal bleeding caused by injuries she received on her wedding night. Her husband was a 40-year-old man.
A father in the South West Asian nation of Yemen has been arrested for burning his 15-year-old daughter to death in a so-called “honor killing,” as reported by the human rights news portal The Thomson Reuters Foundation (of London, England) on Oct. 25, 2013.
As reported, the teen was caught by her father talking on the telephone to her betrothed, which apparently was enough for the father to fly into a full-blown rage over her verboten telephone conversation.
Women are given a rather low status in Yemeni culture by Western standards to the point where it is forbidden for a female to come into contact, however slight, with her future spouse.
The burning to death of the soon-to-be child bride comes on the heels of last month’s case in Yemen of an 8-year-old girl died from internal bleeding caused by injuries she sustained on her wedding night. The husband in that case also was a 40-year-old man.
By and Large, Accepted Both Socially and Legally…
Last year, the UN Human Rights Council voiced concerns over honor killings in Yemen, claiming that those accused were rarely charged and noting that the few who were faced prison sentence of six months to one year at a maximum. As noted by the Middle East Forum, the United Nations states upwards of 5,000 women are murdered every year in the name of so-called “honor killing.”
Considered by many adherents of Islam as a fitting punishment for staining family honor, the Irish Independent newspaper via The Bulletin of Oppressed Women states, “the blunt truth is that honour killings are mainly Muslim-on-Muslim.” According to the Irish news organ, Muslims perpetrate 91 percent of all honor killings worldwide.
Not Exactly a Rarity…
As covered by Examiner.com, honor killings are more common than most Westerners realize. Examples include:
- In April of 2013, a four-month pregnant Jordanian mother was found with her throat slit, womb cut open, and both she and her unborn child were burned. Somehow, the mother and unborn child were considered a blot on the family honor.
- In December of 1012, a family of six, to include a 1-year-old baby, were all shot to death in Pakistan. Two of the daughters killed were separated from their husbands and living with their parents.
- In November of 2012, a 16-year old girl in Pakistan was burned to death with acid by her parents after being caught “looking at two boys on a motorcycle.”
