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Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about honour killings. I think it was because of the murder of 16-year old Aqsa Parvez, who was killed by her brother and father. An honour killing is the murder of a family (usually a female) by one or more fellow (mostly male) family members. The murder is carried out because they believe the victim has brought dishonour upon the family, and murdering is more honourable than letting them live. There is the idea that when you do kill a member who has brought up dishonour, you somehow are able to purify the family’s reputation.
Now Aqua Parvez, was a Brampton teenager who resisted her father’s strict rules; she fought with her parents against wearing the hijab, she fought with her parents to apply for a job, and just two days before she was murdered, she went to the movies for the first time. She also ran away twice, and her father swore he would kill her if she ran away again. And, she was killed, strangled by her brother and father, who have confessed to their murder.
I believe in multicultural societies, the clash between children and parents over values, culture and practices is greater. There simply are more differences and more things to argue about. If parents and children do not enagge in healthy dialogue, someone is making unwanted sacrifices, and when they are ready to resist, the situation hardly will look pretty.
You need some control in your life, and I think parents need to stop us from doing some things that will harm us. It’s natural for teenagers and parents to fight, but you need to find a happy medium, and compromise. If either party is too rigid, then, everyone will be unhappy. I also think the more parents try to control their children, the more they will want to resist one day. It’s like when you build up things over time, one day you just explode, and so I think parents shouldn’t believe they should control everything pertaining to their child.
We the kids need to respect our parents too, because sometimes things we may think are okay now, may not be, and we won’t realize that until the damage is done, or when its too late to reverse the damage. So, in some instances, what the parents say matter.
The idea of honour killings view the victim as a property that is disposable if it brings “shame,” and this shame is based upon what other people think. If the parents were genuinely concerned with the child’s happiness, the whole “what this person will think” is less relevant. And, it must be noted that is it not only women who are taregted, men are also targets; for example, in 2002, 137 men and 245 women were killed in Pakistan for being in a relationship with someone from outside their tribal and religious group.
There are many reasons for honour killings, homosexuality, resisting an arranged marriage, defying your parents’ wishes, being in a relationship with someone your parents don’t want are some of the common reasons. Yet, despite the reasons for it, honour killings are not the answer. For every one person killed in an honour killing, there are probably are many others who are living in unhappiness because of fear and because they could not reach a happy medium with their parents/family.
Society has a lot to do with honour killings, it is because we have passed around the idea that when someone does this, it is so bad, that parents feel it is better to kill them. The whole concept of shame wasn’t meant to be taken into this extreme. Everyone is entitled to their life, and no one has the right to take it away from someone,.
Honour killings do not purify a family’s tainted reputation, it only further dishonoures it. A family who cannot respect its own family members cannot possibly respect themselves.
How do you think society should deal with honour killings, and what should be done to PREVENT them, before they happen?
– Anjali
