Gaza women suffer from die-hard custom of "honor killing"

M.M., a 34-year-old male resident of Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in northern Gaza City never regretted the killing of his sister, who he believed had slept with a stranger.

"I protected the honor and dignity of my clan, and now I can walk down the street holding my head high," said the man, who spoke on condition of only using the abbreviation of his name.

Having served three years in prison for the murder, M.M. thought it was a proper price to pay to keep his family's reputation.

His case was ruled as passion killing by the local court and was given a much lighter penalty than first class murders, because it was categorized as "honor killing", in which a woman was murdered by her male relatives, often her father or brothers, for sex outside marriage.

Honor killing is not entirely rare and insular in the Hamas-ruled Gaza strip of 1.5 million population, where Israel's blockage since June 2007 has increased people's poverty as well as ideological isolation.

Seven women were killed by their family members in the name of "honor" in Gaza since the beginning of 2009, while two were killed in 2008, and eight in 2007, according to a report by the Gaza-based Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR).

"The area is a closed conservative community, and the case of honor killing is one of the most complicated cases we have to deal with," said Mustafa Ibrahim, a researcher in the ICHR in Gaza. "Women victims were too frightened to ask us for help and protection, and people involved in those cases refused to talk."

Ibrahim said that local women, who developed love relationship with men before they got married, had to keep the whole thing confidential, or their lives would be compromised. Parents would never have their daughters hanging out with male friends alone.

The blockage shattered the dreams of young lovers, who did not get blessings for marriage from their families and would like to seek a new life together outside Gaza.

"I don't think we will ever be as open-minded as the western world," said M.M., adding that what he did was out of both family pride and the strict Palestinian norms.

Mona al-Shawa, a female Palestinian human rights activist said the phenomena in Gaza is an old yet new one, and is deeply rooted in the local culture and tradition, "which holds women fully responsible for their families' honor and dignity."

"On the contrary, men rarely got penalized for immoral behavior," she said.

In the Islamic law known as Shari'aa, the punishment for committing adultery should be 80 whips for single man and woman, but if the two were married (to different wife and husband), they would be stoned to death.

Gaza sociologist Dr. Fadel Abu Heen said before people commit honor killing, "they would go through severe mental stress and anxiety." In many cases, they would choose not to kill and keep the "family disgrace" as a top secret.

Palestinian law is clear about first degree murder cases, and most of the murderers receive life sentences. But as honor killings exist not only in Gaza but most of the Arab world as a "custom", the killers usually receive 3 or slightly more years in prison.

Al-Shawa has called on the Palestinian legal authorities in both Gaza and the West Bank "to increase the years of the court's sentence against those who committed honor killing against female family members."

Xinhua reporters tried to speak to several women in Gaza, who were victimized by their brothers and fathers, but survived their injuries. But they all declined to give interviews, saying "it might harm the reputation of their families."

Khalil Abu Shamala, director of Gaza-based Al-Damir human rights group, said "honor killing is considered as one of the most serious human rights violations. People who committed the crimes should not get away with light punishment."

He added that it should be women "who get protected by the law, not those men who tried to murder their sisters or daughters, for suspected love affairs."

Hassan El Juju, Gaza Chief Justice of Supreme court believed that a person should never be allowed to take the law with his own hands and comprise the legal system.

"Whether it is honor killing or not, the matter should be raised to the judicial system to be taken care of by the justice of law," said el-Juju.