Today we watched the documentary called Women on the Front Line in class. It was about the honor killings in Turkey and had a lot of unsettling information about these killings that I never knew. Going into the film, I assumed honor killings were where family members feel a certain member of their family as disgraced them. In order to restore that honor that person must be killed. This film showed me that many of these executions of primarily women are prearranged and done by a male family member. The film did not specifically define what a person would have to do to result in an honor killing, but in our class discussion we talked about rape being one of the main reasons. The woman, the victim is blamed for the rape and honor must be restored by killing her. How horrible is that? She suffers through an unimaginable act then is punished for it. I thought it was interesting how, while the film did not condone honor killings, they portrayed the murderers in a victimized light. It was said that there is a significant amount of social pressure that if the men assigned to kill their family members do not follow though, other men may kill them. One of the limited statistics in the film said that while currently the rate of honor killings has fallen; the amount of suspicious suicides has drastically risen. Families are beginning to try to disguise honor killings as suicides or play them off a murders because the punishment is greatly lessened for murders. One would spend life behind bars for an honor killing, while he would only get 7 years behind bars for murder or nothing for suicide. One of the women being interviewed said that laws alone cannot stop the honor killings, cultural codes must change first. I could not believe that these families are trying to disguise honor killings as suicides. To me, it seems like it defeats the purpose. Whatever the person has done they have publicly shamed their family. To now publicly commit an honor killing would not should everyone that the honor has been restored. I just could never kill any member of my family for any reason at all, no matter what they did.
The one thing that got me was how the honor killings are only behind bars for 7 years??HUH that to me does not make much sense does it. Killing is killing, just because you put a name to it does not make it less of a killing it is still a killing...You do an awesome job with your blogs! keep up the great work!! :)
ReplyDeleteI saw some where that a woman spoke against her husband and they hung her from the goal posts at her son's soccer game, it is just disgusting what these men do to the woman. I personally would be afraid to live in Turkey if I had been born there. I also agree with Bailey, Killing is Killing!
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