Honor Killings Around the World

Honor killings is the murder of a woman or girl by male family members. The killers justify their actions by claiming that the victim has brought dishonor upon the family name or prestige.

These crimes take place throughout the world and are not limited to one specific religion or faith. Sometimes, female relatives often defend the killings and occasionally help set them up.

The possible causes of this crime could be because of refusing to enter into an arranged marriage, seeking a divorce or separation, or openly conversing with men who are not related to them to having sex outside of marriage.

This topic is important because women are seeking for freedom and yet, they’re killed for something so small and simple. To the fact that in some parts of the world, most women don’t have the same amount of rights as men do. Women that go through that should have more freedom and that honor killings shouldn’t be allowed anymore.

Where honor killings take place in

This layer of the map is about where honor killings take place around the world. The color that borders a specific country indicates that that is where honor killings take place in.

These places indicate that honor killing is legal here and it's either common or very common.

Low deaths to high deaths

This layer of the map shows where places around the world have the most deaths to the least deaths. The darkest color has the most deaths (1000+ deaths) and the lightest has the least amount of deaths (smallest ranges from 0-49).

This indicates how frequent honor killings are in these regions of the world.

If they were killed in their homeland or in a different country

This layer of the map displays where women are killed in their homelands or they immigrated to a different country and got murdered there. Pink is where they got killed in their homeland. Red is where they immigrated to that country and got killed there.

This shows how even if they try to immigrate to a different country, they’ll get found somehow and still get killed.

Honor Killings: Multilayer

While looking at data for this topic, I noticed that most of these killings are pretty frequent in these areas. It’s obvious that some of these places have all of the layers filled in because they all have something in common. Like India, they’re used to having these sort of incidents. Most find it wrong while others see it as a good thing. Each person’s decision varies.

Honor killing is considered important in some regions of the world because of culture. Women have more value in the family than men do. There is no honor in honor killing for that women did nothing wrong to die. They just want freedom but culture restrains them from doing such things.

Solutions could definitely be shelter and that they shouldn’t feel so shameless. Advices would work as well. The government could try to do something about it, like for example, Pakistan is making honor killing as illegal and try to have women that fall into honor killings not return to their family. Most of it is unsuccessful. Still, people are trying their best to prevent honor killings from happening.

Reflection:

I chose this topic because I personally wanted to learn more about it and as to why there’s a cause for it. I learned that religion doesn’t apply but culture does. I hope that people learn that there is nothing beneficial from committing honor killings. If someone that isn’t really affected by this topic, it’s better that they knew something like this happens around the world everyday. They could also help prevent honor killings from happening.

Bibliography:

Singh, Raghu N., and J. Douglas Dailey. “Honor Killing.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 3 Aug. 2016,www.britannica.com/topic/honor-killing.

“Honor Killings: Everything You Should Know, and Why They Aren't Honorable.” Global Citizen, www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/honor-based-violence-killings-women-girls-pakistan/.

The Role of Community in Combating Honor Killings, web.stanford.edu/group/womenscourage/communitybasedsolutions/the_role_of_community_in_combating_honor_killings.html.