Here There and Everywhere

Expat wanderer

Stop Honor Killings.com

I used to send out e-mails to close friends about my adventures travelling and living in “exotic” places. When you live your entire life in one place, the smallest things that may seem trivial to you are interesting and different to those who have never been to your country. I would get letters back saying “you don’t know me, you don’t even know the person who shared your e-mail with me, but (that person’s) former wife is related to one of the people you sent the e-mail to . .”

If someone makes an interesting comment on a blog I follow, sometimes I follow that comment, which I did today. On the blog of a person I don’t follow, from a comment from another blogger I don’t follow, I found this fascinating website:
Stop Honor Killings.com

Here is what I would describe as their mission statement:

INTERNATIONAL: International Campaign Against Honour Killings
Posted by Ginger on Wednesday, September 05, 2007 (12:56:46) (187 reads)

Over 5000 women and girls are killed every year by family members in so-called ‘honour killings’, according to the UN. These crimes occur where cultures believe that a woman’s unsanctioned sexual behaviour brings such shame on the family that any female accused or suspected must be murdered. Reasons for these murders can be as trivial as talking to a man, or as innocent as suffering rape.

I’ve lived in countries where honor killings happened, and we knew about it. It would be in the paper. We saw it in Jordan, in particular, where there is now a huge effort to put an end to the killings, and in Qatar, where it was never in the paper, but the kids would tell their teachers about it, and word travels fast in a small country.

I never hear a word about honor killings in Kuwait.

Is that because there aren’t any?

December 11, 2007 Posted by | Community, Cultural, ExPat Life, Free Speech, Health Issues, Jordan, Kuwait, Living Conditions, Qatar, Women's Issues | , | 24 Comments