Survivors of gender-based violence need to be believed and supported. They also need society to describe the harm they experience with appropriate language. Yet time and again, violence against Muslim women is framed as “honour-based,” further stigmatizing victims and the wider communities to which they belong….It’s time for this to stop.
Do people actually still believe that there is no difference between “honour violence” against women and domestic violence against women? While both are despicable, there is a critical difference.
The authors of the article below are Amira Elghawaby (NCCM/CAIR.CAN Communications Director) and Manall Farooqi. They point an accusatory finger at police, and wrongly so, in connection with a case in which a young Muslim woman filed a domestic abuse report against her father. Police referred to this as “honour-based violence.”
Elghawaby and Farooqi take offence to the use of this term, and say this about “honour violence”:
There is nothing honourable at all about the alleged actions of her father, nor is there anything within Islamic teachings that would condone such coercion of one’s family members, or of anyone at all.
Indeed, there is “nothing honourable at all about the alleged actions of her father,” but is it really true that there is nothing “within Islamic teachings that would condone such coercion of one’s family members”? For starters, Islamic teachings state….
Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great. (Qur’an 4:34)
Contemporary translations sometimes water down the word “beat,” but it is the same word used in verse 8:12 and clearly means “to strike.”
And take in your hand a green branch and beat her with it, and do not break your oath… (Quran 38:44)
A woman came to Muhammad and begged him to stop her husband from beating her. Her skin was bruised so badly that it is described as being “greener” than the green veil she was wearing. Muhammad did not admonish her husband, but instead ordered her to return to him and submit to his sexual desires. (Sahih Bukhari 72:715)
Of course not all Muslims practice this, but to say that it is not in Islamic teachings — well, shall we say, this is not the first effort to conceal the teachings within Islam that are used to justify human rights abuses against women.
Westerners are not at all targeting Muslims by calling out this disgraceful abuse, but many are dutifully remaining silent instead of helping Muslim women who live in fear of serious abuses such as “honour” violence, FGM, forced marriage, wife beatings, being regarded as of lesser value than men, etc.
“Honour violence” — as dishonourable as it is — is a widely known, widely practiced, systemic problem, as revealed in the film The Honour Diaries, in which “women’s rights advocates with connections to Muslim-majority societies” engage in an open “dialogue about gender inequality,” and indeed with “honour violence” within such societies, which are described as “human rights disasters.”
Even the United Nations recognizes the obvious difference between domestic violence against women and “honour violence” against women. “Honour violence” includes:
rape victims, women suspected of engaging in premarital sex, and women accused of adultery have been murdered by their relatives because the violation of a woman’s chastity is viewed as an affront to the family’s honour.
It is horrendous to be complicit in such human rights disasters, or try to cover them up and pretend as though Muslims were being targeted when people call out such abuses.
Law enforcement shouldn’t label such acts this way at all, nor should journalists go along with this faulty script.
This is the kind of deceptive victimology that drives “Islamophobia” campaigns. It is an effort to bully Westerners to either accept or turn a blind eye to sharia practices. Ignoring such practices in Western nations enables a two-tier legal system, in which assaults and other human rights offences committed by Muslims who consider themselves ruled by the sharia (deemed above all laws) receive immunity. This is precisely why the massive coverup of Muslim rape gang abuses happened in the UK. Police and social workers were terrified of being called “Islamophobic” and/or “racist.”
Widespread abuses in any religion or culture such should not be tolerated under the umbrella of Western constitutions, which were intended to advance the principle of equal rights for all.
“Farooqi and Elghawaby: Nothing honourable about violence against women”, by Amira Elghawaby and Manall Farooqi, Ottawa Citizen, November 7, 2017:
Survivors of gender-based violence need to be believed and supported. They also need society to describe the harm they experience with appropriate language. Yet time and again, violence against Muslim women is framed as “honour-based,” further stigmatizing victims and the wider communities to which they belong.
It’s time for this to stop.
Recently, news emerged that a young Muslim woman in Gatineau had filed a complaint of domestic abuse against her father. The police called it “honour-based” violence. There is nothing honourable at all about the alleged actions of her father, nor is there anything within Islamic teachings that would condone such coercion of one’s family members, or of anyone at all.
Using “honour” to describe such cases only results in further stereotyping of Muslim or racialized households as particularly backwards, barbaric and uncivilized. It’s a failure to recognize that patriarchy, and the varieties of violence often associated with it, is a global phenomenon that exists among all communities. Violence against women is universally about power and control.
The laws describing violence against women already cover exactly what these cases involve, making it redundant to create a whole new category based on false assumptions that particular communities have specific tendencies to commit specific types of crime.
The case of alleged abuse in Gatineau has already been used as fodder by those opposed to religious freedom for women who wear niqab. In one particularly illogical argument, one columnist went as far as to suggest that defending the rights of Muslim women to wear whatever they want would actually silence any Muslim girl who might be experiencing abuse about her own wardrobe choices. On the contrary, labelling violence against women as honour-based could actually deter victims from reporting it, for a variety of reasons: They might believe they were deserving of such treatment, or might fear stigmatizing their entire family or community if they were to speak up.
Violence against women is a societal norm we need to disrupt. Every six days, a woman in Canada is killed by her intimate partner, according to the Canadian Women’s Foundation. Additionally, research shows that seven in 10 people who experience family violence are young girls and women. This includes women who are killed because their partners fear they will commit, or have committed, adultery.
One case in Ottawa involved a man named Marc Hutt who was convicted in 2013 of brutally killing his wife. Despite having the hallmarks of an honour killing, according to a definition by Human Rights Watch, the term never entered the discourse, observed educator and columnist Aisha Sherazi. One has to wonder if it was because the perpetrator wasn’t from a stereotypical ethnic background.
Creating arbitrary categories of gendered violence won’t solve this problem. Victims must be at the centre of our preoccupation with addressing violence. That includes using language that is fair and avoids scapegoating. This isn’t only a question of semantics: Language can affect public policy as well. The previous government spent five times more money to address “honour crimes” or “harmful cultural practices” in one year than it did addressing violence against Indigenous women, despite the high numbers of missing and murdered women from these communities.
Journalists and lawyers at the New York Times recently discussed how they have been describing the explosive allegations of sexual abuse and assault by powerful men in Hollywood. “Using an evocative phrase or term to describe certain behavior may make for more interesting reading, but it may also suggest more than we know,” wrote Christina Koningisor, the Times’s First Amendment fellow, in exploring why some terms are chosen over others. In the case of so-called honour-based violence, using the term sensationalizes rather than describes the actions involved.
Law enforcement shouldn’t label such acts this way at all, nor should journalists go along with this faulty script.