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The Price of HonorJordanians are fighting a brutal Arab tradition the murder of women for allegedsexual impropriety

By Lisa Beyer

AMMAN: Sirhan, a 34-year-old murderer, ischeerful and relaxed and happy to tell his story.Hes especially proud to describe the efficiency

with which he shot his young sister Susanne inthe head four times last March. She came to thehouse at 8:15, he relates, and by 8:20 she wasdead. Three days before, the 16-year-old girlhad reported to police that she had been raped.She committed a mistake, even if it was againsther will, says Sirhan. Anyway, its better tohave one person die than to have the whole

family die from shame.His is not a logic rare in the Arab world.For centuries, men of the region have engaged inhonor killing, the intra-family slaughter ofallegedly errant females. Women have enduredthe custom, while legal establishments havetolerated or even condoned it. But now activistsin Jordan, backed by the royal family, aredragging the issue out of the darkness. We aredetermined to be an example in our part of the

world, Queen Noor told CNNs ChristianeAmanpour last week in an interview forNewsStand: CNN & Time.

Honor killing has its roots in the crude

Arabic expression a mans honor lies betweenthe legs of a woman. For Arab women, virginity

before marriage and fidelity afterward areconsidered musts. Men are expected to controltheir female relatives. If a woman strays, it is

widely thought, the dignity of the men can berestored only by killing her. In Jordan the 25 orso cases of honor killing documented every yearconstitute a quarter of all homicides.

The slightest sniff of scandal can be adeath warrant. The director of Jordans NationalInstitute for Forensic Medicine, Dr. MumenHadidi, says that in 80% of the cases in which he

conducts a hymenal exam, which is routine inJordan when a girl has gone missing, the samegirl will be returned to him soon after as acorpse, even if she proved to be a virgin. Oncethe story is out in the community, says AsmaKhader, a lawyer and feminist, they have tokill. Forbidden sex isnt always the issue.Marrying or divorcing against the familys

wishes can also provoke murder.

As is common in the Arab world, the lawin Jordan winks at honor killers. If a mancatches his wife or a close female relative in theact of adultery and kills her, he is exempt frompunishment. If the situation only suggests illicitsex, hes entitled to a reduced sentence. In suchcases, jail terms range from a few months to afew years. Sirhan served six months.

For women under threat, there is littlerecourse. Running away is next to impossiblesince Arab societies are close-knit and few

women have the means to live alone. Jordanianauthorities have a bizarre remedy: they jailendangered women. Rafa, 20, was locked upin an Amman prison after her uncles and

brothers vowed to murder her for having athree-day affair with a co-worker. At any onetime, Jordans prisons may house 70 such

women. Sometimes they are released after theirfamilies promise not to harm them, though thatis no guarantee. Susannes male relatives signedsuch a pledge before Sirhan killed her.

Once an unspoken topic, honor killing inrecent years has begun to be spotlighted in themedia, thanks in part to Rana Husseini, a

trailblazing reporter for the English languageJordan Times. Since 1996, the JordanianWomens Union has opened a hot line forwomen in distress. Creating a safe house toprotect them is the next objective of activists.

Abolishing the legal loop-holes is another.Even with such changes, honor killings

are hard to combat. Sirhan says that at the timehe killed his sister he thought he was committinga capital crime, yet he wasnt deterred. Improud, he beams. Sirhan served his time at thesame prison in which Rafa languishes,contemplating her catastrophic three-day

romance. With the mistake I made, she says,I deserve to die.

Time MagazineJanuary 18, 1999