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Shafilea Ahmed, 17, disappeared from her Cheshire home in 2003 after a trip to Pakistan where she was made to meet a chosen husband. Her response to this family pressure was to drink bleach and write defiant poems. She told people about her domestic abuse. Soon afterwards, she was found dead. Her parents and five other relatives were arrested on suspicion of kidnap but released on bail; they deny any involvement in her death. An inquest has just started.
This could be yet another unproven "honour killing". Even if it is not, there has been a rise in such killings and cases of appalling sadism meted out to women by their loved ones, as revealed by two documentaries on BBC2 this week. It is all done in the name of "izzat" (honour), which is felt to be violated if females refuse to obey like trained dogs.
I have written about these crimes for more than two decades and have known victims of the cruel oppression within a minority of British Asian and Arab families. Things can only get better, promised New Labour in 1997. Yet violence against women has got shockingly worse, partly because each new generation of girls gets more removed from Eastern values and more fiercely independent. More depressingly, younger women do not, any more, come out collectively against the outrage.
There was a time when a dowry death or wife, sister or daughter killing got Asian women so livid we would picket the homes of the killers with placards, jeering at the men and women who supported izzat punishments. Their bloody laundry was held up for all to see; for communal people, that was death in life. We expressed rage on behalf of those who couldn't. Proud feminists, we were undeterred by threats from the families and their thugs.
But most young Asian and Arab women today wouldn't be seen dead picketing. Instead the sharp and bright join think-tanks or become lawyers. We have also seen the rise of apologist women's groups - particularly "Islamic" female activism - which idolises cultural and religious values, however heinous. Meanwhile, organisations such as the Muslim Council of Britain keep to traditional lines and never protect women's rights.
It really is time for Asian and Arab women who have a voice and conscience to take direct action, name and shame murderous families and communities. And yes, I would join them, with my old placard, still in the shed, last used in 1984.
Reader views (1)
Bravo, Yasmin. I don't often agree with you, but this time, you are absolutely right. Even the term "honour killing" in inverted commas dignifies it. I call it murder pure and simple. It horrifies me that, as Ms Alibhai-Brown says, we are not out on the streets about it, protesting against the wrong-headed, pernicious attitude of those who seek to ignore the issue for the sake of "cultural sensitivity". Time to wake up.
- Richard, London, UK, 10/01/2008 13:24
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