‘Honour killings’ on the rise in Canada: Expert
http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Honour+killings+rise+Canada+Expert/3165638/story.html
Summary:
– more commonly heard of in Muslim religion; though possibly practiced by other religions more or less in the past
– Definition: “The killing of one’s own child–usually a daughter–because her behaviour is believed to have brought shame to the family“; since 2002, 13 of these cases and increasing
– may be done due to several reasons: accusation of infidelity of woman, premarital sex, being a rape victim (counting as part of sexual infidelity), or dating others
– examples of such crime: 1- Aqsa Parvez (age 16) slained by her father and brother in Mississauga, Ontario for wanting to dress western and getting a part-time job
2- Afghan mother in Montreal was accused of stabbing her daughter (age 19) for staying out all night
3- The infamous case of Muhammad Shafia, his second wife and their son killing Shafia’s first wife and three daughters by drowning them in a car in a canal in Kingston, Ontario
– a few countries allowed partial or full defense against charging honour killing (including Argentina, Bangladesh, Turkey, Iran, Israel, Peru, Egypt, etc); currently no country is officially supporting the act
– though recently outlawed, “perpetrators are rarely brought to justice”
– according to UN Population Fund, approximately 5000 women and girls are murdered every year due to this issue
My Opinion:
The article was able to express the author’s opinions clearly through identifying incidents related to this topic as well as provide an expert’s statistics. Because the topic relates to religion and practice of a culture, it is rather sensitive and grey to state the problem and solution of such a matter. However, in my opinion, lives shouldn’t be taken away from others so easily, not to mention when they are your own wife or daughter. Can a sense of pride be worth more than your loved one’s life? Even the Quran had not state that taking your family’s life away is tolerable, this really shows what those men have in their priority, neither religion nor family, it’s pride. I think many of the people who commit honour killing are forcing their own beliefs on others, many which include the Canadian government, when the Canadians said that people are allowed to practice their own religion and we are not allowed to judge, they must have considered this act part of their religion. In all three cases mentioned in the article, we can see that the women were killed because they want to, or tried to adapt to our Canadian society. It is sad to see things that what most of us youths see as experiences and parts of growing up can lead to such blood baths.
Jan's Digital Art Blog 