Remembering the South-Asian Victims of Honor-Killings

by Eman Khalid

Honor killing is a common practice in south-Asian communities and usually stems from an extensive misinterpretation of religious beliefs mixed with cultural beliefs that the perpetrators use for getting away with the murder of their innocent victims. In most cases, honor killing is the murder of a female by a male member of her family, who justifies his heinous actions by claiming that the victims had played a contributing role in disrupting their family’s so-called honor. According to the UN, around 5,000 honor killings take place every year aiming at women, which usually includes beating, abductions, and murder.

In this article, we remember and honor the south-Asian victims of honor killings who lost their precious lives too soon at the hands of the ones who were supposed to protect them at all costs. But this world is unfair, and not everyone we call family actually has the best interests for us at heart. Some people consider their so-called reputation to be more important than the lives of their sisters, mothers, or daughters.

The Murder of Shafilea Ahmed

Shafilea Ahmed was a British-Pakistani girl born and raised in Bradford, who was murdered by her parents in an honor killing at the age of 17, due to their belief that she had become too “Westernised,” even though she had grown up in a Western country, surrounded by her Western friends, and Western cultural traditions. Shafelia’s parents wanted her to follow their strict Pakistani cultural ideals and if she applied fake nails, they’d label her a “whore,” and a “prostitute.”

According to Shafilea’s family friend Shahin Munir, Shafilea’s parents abused her physically and verbally, extensively. The abuse worsened when she refused to marry her cousin from Pakistan. Shafilea Ahmed tried multiple times to escape her family’s house but it all resulted in failed attempts. When Shafilea was killed by her parents, no one found out at the very beginning. Police were alerted after Shafilea wasn’t seen at school but when they called at the family home they were told she had run away. It wasn’t until five months later that the decomposed body of Shafilea was found washed in the River Kent near Sedgwick in Cumbria.

Her body was so gruesomely dismembered that dental records had to be used from her lower jaw and DNA evidence from the bone of her right thigh confirmed this. Shafilea Ahmed’s parents were each subsequently imprisoned for a minimum of 25 years for her murder in August 2012.

Interfaith Couple In India Murdered in an Honor Killing

Hailing from the rural areas of India, a young nineteen-year-old boy from the Dalit community named Basavaraj Madivalapaa Badiger and an eighteen-year-old Muslim girl named Davalbi Bandagisab Tambad from the city of Khanapur, were found dead in the North of Karnataka over an alleged case of honor killing. Despite being madly in love, their relationship was considered to be a crime because they belonged to completely different religions. And when Davalbi’s family caught her with Basavaraj in the field, they allegedly smashed their heads and let their bodies rot in a field in Devara Hipparagi taluk, Vijayapura district, North Karnataka. Four people have been arrested who were related to the murder of Davalbi Bandagisab Tambad and Basavaraj Madivalapaa Badiger - Davalbi’s brother Daval (20), her father Bandagisab Tambad (50), and her two brothers-in-law Rafique Sab (24) and Allasab (29). Police have alleged this murder to be an honor killing, since the girl’s family were aware of the relationship, and they had advised Basavaraj to leave Davalbi since they had severely objected to the interfaith companionship of the two youngsters.

Tragic Teen Honor Killing - Celine Dookhran

Celine Dookhran, a nineteen-year-old aspiring makeup artist born and raised in London, of Indian descent, was killed in gruesome murder in Southwest London in 2017. According to the Independent UK, on January 17, 2018, a court heard that Celine was raped and murdered by her "obsessed" uncle, Arshid, after he decided if he couldn't have her, "nobody else would,” when he found out that she was dating an Arab Muslim boy. Celine Dookhran’s body was found by the police stuffed in a fridge freezer in a £1.5million home in Kingston-upon-Thames, London. Postpartum reports revealed that Celine had died due to a stab in her neck. Reports have also shown that her uncle, Mujahid Arshid, had sexually abused Celine as a child and when she confronted her family about this, they brushed off her remarks and did not pay much attention to what she had to say. According to the Old Bailey, “Arshid had a festering obsession with the surviving victim dating back to when she was a child.” On 2018, February 14th, Arshid was sentenced to at least 40 years after he was convicted of murder and attempted rape.

Social Media Star Murdered Over Internet Videos - Qandeel Baloch

Qandeel Baloch, originally named Fouzia Azeem, was Pakistan’s first social media celebrity. She was a model, an actress, and also an activist. She spoke on various social issues in her videos and gained immense popularity not just in Pakistan, but also in India and Bangladesh because of her outgoing personality and bubbly nature. However, her charm and outgoing nature soon led to her demise after she was involved in a series of controversies with a famous Muslim personality of Pakistan named Abdul Qavi. Qandeel Baloch was drugged and killed by her brother when she visited her parents in her hometown in Multan, Pakistan, to celebrate Eid in the summer of 2016. Her death sparked nationwide anger amongst feminist groups which inspired many young girls in Pakistan to march on the streets of Pakistan every year on International Women’s Day to show solidarity with the women who are falsely accused, raped, and wrongly killed in the name of honor.

Conclusion

These are just a few of the women who were killed in the name of honor. Hundreds of other females have struggled and are still struggling at the hands of their perpetrators, not just in South-Asia, but in different parts of the world. Many of these women had felt unsafe prior to being killed. Despite living in the twenty-first century, men still believe they can justify killing a woman either by saying that she was “asking for it” or that she was “disrupting their family’s honor.”

Since when was a family’s honor placed on a woman’s shoulders? A woman is so much more than a sister, a wife, a mother, and a daughter. Before she is yours, she is her own. She is a living breathing human being, with feelings, ambitions, goals, aspirations, hopes, and dreams. She does not live for you, nor does she dress up to please a man. Nothing she does or says justifies any form of violence against her.

The women mentioned above, and many other women like them, might have had their perpetrators put behind bars and have thousands of articles written about how “killing women” is bad but change won’t occur in our societies and communities unless change starts from our homes.

It is common in South-Asian households to hold their daughters accountable for the tiniest mistakes but the male members can get away with something as massive as cheating and even abuse. The younger generation of South-Asian individuals is showing some hope for change in our society. But change won’t happen in the world unless we change ourselves, and treat our sons and daughters equally and remind them that “men will not always be men” and that “they will be held equally responsible for their crimes.”

The women killed in the name of honor might be gone from this world, but their presence is still felt today. The more women they silence, the more women they kill in the name of honor, the more we shall rise, the more we shall write, the more we shall scream and shout until our voices are heard and sisters are given the justice that they deserve.