‘Honour Killing’ in the Immigration Context: Multiculturalism and the Racialization of Violence against Women

Abstract

Over the past two decades, Western immigrant-receiving countries have been confronted with honour killings and other forms of honour-related violence. This article analyses the uses of culture in public, policy, and legal approaches to honour killing. By reifying culture, debates regarding honour killing and honour-related violence racialize immigrant communities within which this form of violence occurs. Yet, culture is an important element in expressions of (and responses to) violence and by approaching culture as a meaning-making process, I argue for an understanding of honour killing and honour-related violence as forms of the gendered violence that affects all societies. From this vantage point, I outline the social patterns associated with honour killing and analyse policy efforts in countries like Germany, the Netherlands, and Britain that aim at prevention and protection, bringing those to bear on a Canadian context largely devoid of systematic policy approaches. The article ends with a brief account of the legal processes attending this violence in both immigrant-sending and immigrant-receiving states, turning to two case studies to illustrate the culturally nuanced approach to analysing honour killing this article proposes.

Notes

1 Honour-related violence other than murder is not tracked to the best of my knowledge.

2 Until 2003, Article 462 of the Turkish Criminal Code treated the discovery of illicit relationships of first-degree relatives as provocation. Article 462, in combination with other articles of the Turkish Criminal Code, enabled a substantial reduction in sentences in the case of honour-related crimes. Article 462 was revoked under EU pressure but other articles that reduce sentences of other honour-related crimes remain in place, see Kogacioglu (2004).

3 Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship, 9. Accessed at http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pdf/pub/discover.pdf, December 11, 2011, italics added.

4 There are a number of very insightful analyses of the use and understanding of culture. For an outline of how culture is used to analyse legal cases to produce ‘us’ versus ‘them’ constructions see Volpp (2000) and for an articulation of a more fine-grained approach to culture in legal cases, see Volpp (2002–2003).

5 Interview with Willem Timmer and Janine Jansen, 13 June 2008. Willem Timmer is Chief of Police for the National Expertise Centre on Honour-Related Violence (Landelijk Expertise Centrum Eergerelateerd Geweld or LEC) and Janine Janssen is the resident anthropologist at the LEC).

6 We heard this in our interviews with front-line workers, activists, and advocates engaged in addressing violence against women in the South Asian communities of the Greater Toronto Area (Korteweg et al. 2013), and this is also evident in analyses by scholars like Abu-Lughod (2011), Razack (2008), and in the edited volume by Welchman and Hossain (2005). See also Terman (2010) for a discussion of this issue.

7 Zarife (18) had problems at home with her father and school counsellors guided her to a women's shelter and also attempted to reconcile Zarife with her father by calling him into meetings. In hindsight, people involved in the case argue that these highly visible discussions contributed to her father's determination to kill her. He convinced Zarife that he had made peace with the way she wanted to live her life and invited her on a family vacation to Turkey where he shot and killed her in August 2003. Reporting on the Shafia case in which the father, mother, and brother have been convicted of murdering their three daughters/sisters and the father's first wife, who lived with the family, has brought to light the involvement of various social workers and school counsellors. The question is whether their involvement had a similar effect of creating the family's perception that their troubles were broadcast to the wider community.

8 This understanding of culture as meaning-making is rooted in Williams (1977) and various readings in sociology and anthropology, including Swidler (1986) and Bourdieu (1977). For discussions of culture in law see Volpp (2000, 2002–2003). See also Ewing (2008) for an example of how a more nuanced approach to culture can link the debates regarding honour killing through fantasy to national imaginaries.

9 For a discussion of the distinctions between passion and honour see Abu-Odeh (1997) and Fournier, McDougall and Dekker (2012). That the sentiment that women who become victims of sexual assault are to blame is still alive is reflected in the statement, made On 24 January 2011, by a representative of the Toronto Police that ‘women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized’. This statement inspired a now international movement of ‘slutwalks’ where women (and men) march to confront the culture that gives rise to sexual assault and victim blaming. See http://www.slutwalktoronto.com/, last accessed December 20, 2011.

10 For an outline of activities of the Southall Black Sisters, go to: http://www.southallblacksisters.org.uk/ (last accessed on December 17, 2011). See also, Women Living Under Muslim Law (2004). For an example of a British government report using the modifier ‘so-called’ see House Affairs Committee (2008); for an example of scholarly work, see Welchman and Hossain (2005). For a discussion of whether we should use the term ‘honour killing’ written from an American scholarly perspective, which answers the question in the affirmative but with reservations, see Terman (2010).

11 See http://www.caircan.ca/downloads/Call_to_Action_to_Eradicate_Domestic_Violence.pdf, accessed November 27, 2011.

12 Interview with Karima Ouchan, Samenwerkingsverband Marokaanse Nederlanders, June 10, 2009. See also Een kwestie van eer: Tien portretten van MBO-jongeren met eergerelateerde problemen (Albeda College and ROC van Twente 2007), http://huiselijkgeweld.nl/doc/publicaties/kwestievaneer_portrettenboekje__2_.pdf, last accessed December 20, 2011.

13 See for example the case of Aqsa Parvez, discussed below.

14 Personal communication, on file with author.

15 Interview with Willem Timmer and Janine Janssen, see note 6.

16 Interview with Willem Timmer and Janine Janssen, see note 6.

17 Interviews with Carola Dogan of the Inspraakorgaan Turken, Karima Ouchan of the Samenwerkingsverband Nederlandse Marokanen, and Anne Floor Dekker of the Vluchtelingen Organizaties Nederland, June 2009.

18 As I update this article in August 2013, there are still no targeted policies on honour-related violence though informal discussions are increasingly happening within immigrant and violence against women organizations as well as state bureaucracies. Given how multiculturalism, as social fact and policy approach, shapes Canadian politics, it might be the case that in the Canadian context, we will see the development of an approach that directly folds prevention and protection efforts into general approaches to gendered violence. It would be important that such an approach takes into account the wide range of cultural specificities and social patternings, which shape the experiences of such violence.

19 We analysed reporting on the Aqsa Parvez case in the two Canadian national newspapers, the National Post and The Globe and Mail, and in the Greater Toronto Area regional paper, The Toronto Star. Politically speaking, the National Post is seen as more conservative, The Globe and Mail more liberal, and The Toronto Star the most left of the three.

20 Kathryn Blaze Carlson, ‘Update: Minster's “honour killings” misstep’ (July 12, 2010) National Post, http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/07/12/rona-ambrose-honour-killings-will-not-be-tolerated-in-canada/, last accessed December 20, 2011.

21 See http://www.swc-cfc.gc.ca/med/sta-dec/2012/0203-eng.html (last accessed April 24, 2012). As this article moves to publication, the Status of Women Office has given some larger grants to a number of organizations.

22 For example, a number of activists and service providers have been working to prevent forced marriages (see http://www.forcedmarriages.ca/, last accessed December 20, 2010). Then Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has instead chosen to address ‘marriage fraud’ (see, e.g. David McKie ‘CBSA urged to act on marriage fraud complaints: Immigration minister wants border agents to build credible cases’ (October 29, 2011) CBC News, http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/10/29/pol-marriage-fraud.html, last accessed December 20, 2011). For the Quebec Charter, see http://www.nosvaleurs.gouv.qc.ca/fr (last accessed October 14, 2013).

23 Unless otherwise noted, this account is based on R. v. Atwal (2005) B.C.J. No. 1512.

24 R. v. Atwal, 3.

25 In the Netherlands, see, for example, the cases of Schijman Kuashi and Zarife, in Canada, the cases of Amandeep Atwal and Aqsa Parvez.

26 Unless otherwise noted, this account is based on R. v. Muhammad Manzour Parvez (father) and Waqas Parvez (son) Agreed Statement of Facts. Available at http://www.cbc.ca/toronto/news/pdf/sof-parvez.pdf, last accessed December 19, 2011.

27 Agreed Statement of Facts, 5, italics in original.

28 Margaret Wente, ‘A teenage Muslim girl: Why was she killed?’ (13 December 2007) Globe and Mail. As one reviewer points out, there are echoes here of Bernard Lewis’ argument about the loss of control over “their” women being a key explanation of the “Muslim rage” he argues inspires the “clash of civilizations” between Islam and the West (Lewis 1990). However, in this moment, Wente seemed inclined to normalize this expression of violence by treating it as “a common enough story”.

29 Agreed Statement of Facts, 10.

30 R. v. Atwal, paragraph 43.

31 ‘Father, Brother Of Murdered Teen Aqsa Parvez Sentenced To Life In Prison’ City TV staff, June 16, 2010, http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/news/local/article/79206–sentencing-wed-for-father-son-who-murdered-16-yr-old-aqsa-parvez, accessed December 17, 2011.

32 Melinda Dalton ‘Shafia Jury Finds All Guilty of First-Degree Murder: Verdict Sends Message Prosecutor Says’ CBC News, January 29, 2012. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2012/01/29/shafia-sunday.html. Last accessed February 23, 2012.