National Women's Rights demonstration[/caption]Editor--While Republicans and Democrats attempt to score points with women following Hilary Rosen's statement that Ann Romney, wife of Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, had never worked outside the home, and women's groups continue to champion what they maintain are important rights from hard-fought civil rights battles, around the world women remain the target of violence, including honor killings.
Honor killings rise from deep-rooted prejudices against women. These crimes are not just confined to Muslim countries, but are part of the male culture in some countries that dominates women's rights in general. Women are subjected to horrific torture, beatings and killings for asserting themselves in ways far less than American women asking for equal pay for work outside the home and the freedom to have both a career and family or to simply make the choice of staying at home with their children. The issue of the stay-at-home mom vs the working girl may be the controversy in the United States, but in many countries, women are often forced into a form of slavery from which many are unable to escape.
According to Amnesty International, honor killings are on the rise in many places around the world including Ecuador, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Sweden, Syria, Turkey, Uganda, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The United Nations reports 5,000 women and girls are killed by their families each year in what is called "honor killings".
In January 2012, a jury found an Afghan family guilty of honor killings in a case that astonished Canadians. Mohammad Shafia, 58, his wife Tooba Yahya, 42, and their son Hamed, 21, were each found guilty of four counts of first-degree murder of sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13. Their crimes? Dishonoring the family by going against the strict rules regarding dress, dating, socializing, and using computers to access the Internet. Their bodies were found in a submerged car in a Kingston, Ontario canal.
While women in the United States examine their roles of working while raising a family or becoming a stay-at-home mom, other women face terror for the simple act of wanting to express themselves independently. Women's rights, while considered a basic human right in America by most citizens, remain only a daydream by women trapped in family relationships where violence is the answer to the quest for independence.
