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Today's Independent has the first part of a new study of the issue of 'honour killings'. You can read it here: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/the-crimewave-that-shames-the-world-2072201.html
This is not about religion, it's about custom. Woman-abuse crosses all religions, all cultures, all peoples. That needs to be remembered. It's not so long since this kind of thing happened in Europe and the US -- think of witch trials, of state-sanctioned abuse of wives, of the misuse of asylums, of the court cases where murderers have received light or no sentences because the victim 'nagged', or 'teased', or was considered adulterous. (Someone is going to demand details, which I don't have to hand, but it is a fact that more women are murdered daily than men, that more women than men are abused by their partners or families, and that services for them are under huge pressure.)
What do we do? I don't have an easy answer. We write letters, we raise concerns, we support causes that help women like these. We don't fall for arguments about the sanctity of marriage or the 'right to life' of one set of people prioritised over that of another. And we keep talking about this.
This is not about religion, it's about custom. Woman-abuse crosses all religions, all cultures, all peoples. That needs to be remembered. It's not so long since this kind of thing happened in Europe and the US -- think of witch trials, of state-sanctioned abuse of wives, of the misuse of asylums, of the court cases where murderers have received light or no sentences because the victim 'nagged', or 'teased', or was considered adulterous. (Someone is going to demand details, which I don't have to hand, but it is a fact that more women are murdered daily than men, that more women than men are abused by their partners or families, and that services for them are under huge pressure.)
What do we do? I don't have an easy answer. We write letters, we raise concerns, we support causes that help women like these. We don't fall for arguments about the sanctity of marriage or the 'right to life' of one set of people prioritised over that of another. And we keep talking about this.
