by Kanishka Nawabi

Over decades Afghanistan lacks a central power to govern its multi ethnic and culturally diverse society. A society without a powerful State lacks not only a central judicial system but also any jurisdiction or influence beyond its areas of military presence. Not only lack of a central government but also invasions and civil wars has been a trademark to this land. As war takes its tools on human, economy and all spheres of life it also creates a system of social control based on crime lead by a bunch of tugs with money and guns. Destruction of economical and social infrastructures, as a consequence of war also leads the ground open for vested interests and negative cultural influences by neighboring countries, in Afghanistan context, Iran and Pakistan.

In Afghanistan hundreds of women get shot, burned, strangled, stoned, poisoned every year, the action is justified as Honour Killing. In this vicious context male relatives of the female believe their actions have dishonoured the family name. They die so family honour may survive. According to most of our â€کAfghan’ practices, woman is a man’s possession and saving such high possession is the reflection of honour. Over centuries when Afghan fought Afghan it is either over a piece of land or women. Why such a horrible flawed exists in Afghan cultural system may not be that easy to answer. It is may be because there is no alternative judicial body (no central government, hence no authority) or centralized power structures in a tribal society which doesn’t accept external influence or other reasons, people in a community either village, Guzar (cluster of villages) cities or districts are left to their own means to make the right decision for themselves. Even international community failed to provide political and financial support for Afghanistan’s judicial reform process now and then, leave it that we have a quite medieval people running the system!

Afghanistan is among the poorest nations in the world. In a vulnerable society such as this, when a social practice such as Honour Killing is introduced, from outside, and repeated over time it changes to a norm and whether good or evil becomes part of the new social practice.  Afghanistan has already accepted Crimes of Honour, including Honour Killing as an accepted cultural code. Elderly, chieftains and religious leaders take decisions in most areas of life, including pardoning or prosecuting the perpetuators of Honour crimes. Despite that there is hardly any reliable data on the scale of problem in Afghanistan the image looks very grim. Based on â€کpersonal’ data, in Afghanistan context the problem is mostly concentrated in Pushtoon dominated Eastern and Southern Afghanistan, it is a fact and I never reckon that the problem is bound to Pushtoon dominated areas. Individual data collected by the aid community in this region shows that around 231 women is the casualty of "Honour Killings" carried out by their own relatives during 1997. It is estimated that that husbands carried out 110 of the killings, brothers 53, fathers 32, sons 11 and uncles 4. In the other cases, there was no mention of who carried out the killing.  The last two decades of war also didn’t help much.  As far our memories allow at the heart of the problem, troops and police loyal to different Afghan military functions and figures has taken law into their hands. Holding and terrorising residents, assaults and robbing them, women and girls are raped by armed intruders. Still serious cases of domestic violence, including Honour Killing are not regarded as a criminal by either police or courts and viewed as a family issue and can’t be dealt with in the family sphere, example: How Ismail Khan run Herat.

Not only in Afghanistan but throughout the world, men who murder their wives, daughters, sisters or other female relatives face legal systems merciful towards their crimes. However, internationally there are two main types of criminal and legal systems which try to reduce or eliminate criminal penalties for men. 1) Legal and Justice systems in middle eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Iran and Syria use laws to achieve these aims. Afghanistan (at least before 1992) and also Pakistan’s legal systems does not recognize a defense for men who kills their female relatives, but many courts have utilized the concept of â€کemotional, grave and sudden provocation’ to perhaps reach similar end as Middle Eastern countries. 2) Legal systems in which laws are designed to protect women from their male relatives but are not enforced. In this context we need to focus on dowry deaths in India. Brides are murdered by their male relatives because they have not been able to provide them with high dowries (money etc.). Silenced by their culture of large populations, women in India tolerate abuse and subsequent death because they have provided insufficient dowry. 

In Afghanistan however, fundamentalist and tribal way of life are taught to be a breeding ground for the brutal and unjustified killing by the name of honour. Women being killed intentionally and brutally is a price that women pay to practice their human rights such as how to dress, talk to men (other than their male family members) live, work and study independently, and marry at will or have voluntary sexual relations. In some cases and people who commit this act of â€کHonour’ and their defenders unjustifyingly refer to the following verse of the Quran that allows husbands to beat their wives:

Translation: "As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill - conduct, admonish them, refuse to share their beds, beat them"³ , the Koran, chapter 4, verse 34.

In Afghanistan, Honour Killing is a tribal practice incorporated into the religion, in its extreme critique: because of its anti – women nature and misogynist philosophy. It is taught that law is usually in the man’s side, hence the judicial system is sympathetic to fathers, brothers, husbands, uncles who commit such crimes.

In most of the cases it is the family of the victim and the community who never report the case to the authorities.  According to Afghan traditions (mixed with Islamic interpretations) from the very childhood, girls are taught about â€کeib’, which means shame, and â€کsharaf’, which mean honour. Their mothers always remind them that their most important mission in life is to remain virgins until they marry. Boys on the other hand are taught to have â€کghayrat’, meaning to be zealous. Most of these concepts are cultural and somehow embedded in Islam that is why people who commit crimes of honour defend their acts by these concepts.

However, there is one very crucial issue which needs to be clarified and that is the issue of sexual behaviour. Afghan tradition and also Islamic laws imposes strict codes of behaviour on the issues of sex and sexual relationships. In this case there is no distinction between male committing the act of adultery or women, both would be punished similarly (No Honour Killing!).

Hence only justified sexual relationship is through legal marriage, all other sexual relations are criminalized and punished. The controversy is that in Afghanistan culture, Islam, and law is mixed together and has taken rather a form of morality. This is how the society works. We reach to the very same conclusion that communities without central (or any) legal systems needs to create and adopt one of their own for their own survival. There is an important element of cultural gap between Eastern (mostly Islamic) and western (democratic) societies as the people who commit such crime repeatedly defend their acts by refereeing to the Islamic and cultural values while western feminists, media largely try to explain these acts of crime as an element of domestic violence against women.

While people who commit honour crimes, whether in Afghanistan, state that their act of murder are â€کcrimes of honour’ they are hardly following the directions set in their religious beliefs. In Koran, most of the western or Islamic intellectuals repeatedly assure that it is not Islam and the tribal ways, but the common pattern of violence that is happening to the Western women too: the famous case of O. J. Simson, for example!

Afghanistan has the largest refugee population in the world (6 million). One of the problem with this number of refugees is that they are mostly concentrated in the neighbouring countries (Pakistan ca. 2.5 million) and (Iran ca. 1.5 million). These two countries, specially Pakistan is the very hot spot of the Honour Killings in the world. “Out of 5,000 "honour" killings worldwide in the year 2000, around 1,000 took place in Pakistanâ€‌. This doesn’t very much help the situation because the inter marriages between mostly tribal and people from border of these countries makes these practices more common amongst Afghans.

The number of Afghan refugees living in Pakistan are rather in a very awkward situation. Under the military rule of General Zia ul-Haq (July 5, 1977 – August 17, 1988) a very vague and deceitful law was introduced to decide the faith of Afghan refugees. General passed the law and named all refuges as Muhajir (Arabic term for refugee). The term Muhajir is used after the Islam prophet Mohammad (pbuh) left his birth place for fear of those opposing him and taken refuge in other city.

Besides other political agendas, he left Pakistan legal and judicial system under no obligation from UN or other international convention on refugee rights. Afghans are neither refugees or â€کanything else’ in Pakistan. This leaves the Afghan women in a very difficult situation. The â€کHadood’ laws also brought in during Zia time on Pakistanis gave legal sanction to the belief that a woman deserved to die if she was unfaithful. The burden of proof was entirely on her.

In over populated Pakistan and Iran, with no source of jobs or recruitments, women refugees have no means of day work to support their families or feed their children. Having no food and jobs forces them to turn to illegal acts (!) to provide food for their children (families) and cover their families’ requirements and other expenses. Most of the young girls widows who have lost their families in the last 24 years of conflict have no means to save their status and dignity in society. Such issues coupled with host countries' restrictions force them to such acts as shoplifting, mugging, prostitution etc. As a result hundreds of them have been killed or arrested and kept in jails for years. Many refugee women and children have been killed in Peshawar, Pakistan only in 2002, in the name of family honour.

There is no single remedy to the problem of honour killing, if we think of feminism and western ways or addressing the issue of Honour Killings as only way or if we only focus on religious, tribal and traditional solutions we would again be stuck in the very same vicious circle. To end this vicious circle, every society needs an effective criminal justice system to protect women against violence.

I reckon in Afghanistan despite the new constitution, the system is selective and crime against women is institutionalised. In order to achieve women rights we mainly need to change the male legal paradigm. Even now, as Afghanistan moves towards centralised and democratic governance system, the problem would remain for foreseeable future. Presently Honour Killing is against Afghan laws, but in conservative tribal communities, with little influence from central government and traditional attitudes is dominant.

Hence there is need for a more strict laws in our new constitution which should hold the Jirga (tribal decision making body) or influential people of the community responsible. On the issue of the Afghan refugees mostly in vulnerable countries such as Pakistan and Iran, the solution lies in defining a practical perspective legal literature for Afghan refugee women in these countries, Afghan government needs to lobby the matter with it is Pakistani and Iranian counter parts. Also there should be further explanation on the international refugee conventions which can encompass the issue of refugees and specially honour killing in Pakistan and Iran. There should be ways sought to debate sexual violence and honour killing against women which exists in refugee context.