Journalist, feminist, and human rights defender, Rana Husseini broke the silence and exposed the shame of Jordan when she unveiled the common but unspoken crime of honor killings there. Honor killings happen when a woman is raped or is said to have participated in illicit sexual activity. Fathers, brothers, and sons see it as their duty to avenge the offense, not by pursuing the perpetrators but by murdering the victims; their own daughters, sisters, mothers. Honor killings accounted for one-third of the murders of women in Jordan in 1999.
"I never imagined that I would work on women's issues when, in September 1993, I was assigned as the crime reporter at The Jordan Times. In the beginning I wrote about thefts, accidents, fires – all minor cases. Then, after about four or five months on the job, I started coming across crimes of honor. One story really shocked me and compelled me to get more involved.
"In the name of honor, a sixteen-year-old girl was killed by her family because she was raped by her brother. He assaulted her several times and then threatened to kill her if she told anyone. When she discovered that she was pregnant she had to tell her family. After the family arranged an abortion, they married her off to a man fifty years her senior. When he divorced her six months later, her family murdered her.
"An honor killing occurs when a male relative decides to take the life of a female relative because, in his opinion, she has dishonored her family's reputation by engaging in an 'immoral' act. An immoral act could be that she was simply seen with a strange man or that she slept with a man. In many cases, women are killed just because of rumors or unfounded suspicions.
"When I went to investigate the crime I met with her two uncles. At first when I questioned them about the murder they got defensive and asked, 'Who told you that?' I said it was in the newspaper. They started telling me that she was 'not a good girl.' So I asked, 'Why was it her fault that she has been raped? Why didn't the family punish her brother?' And they both looked at each other and one uncle said to the other, 'What do you think? Do you think we killed the wrong person?' The other replied, 'No, no. Don't worry. She seduced her brother.' I asked them why, with millions of men in the street, would she choose to seduce her own brother? They only repeated that she had tarnished the family image by committing an impure act. Then they started asking me questions: 'Why was I dressed like this? Why wasn't I married? Why had I studied in the United States?' They inferred that I, too, was not a good girl.
"From then on I went on covering stories about women who were killed in an unjust, inhuman way. Most of them did not commit any immoral, much less illegal, act, and even if they did, they still did not deserve to die. But I want to emphasize two things. One is that all women are not threatened in this way in my country. Any woman who speaks to any man will not be killed. These crimes are isolated and limited, although they do cross class and education boundaries. The other thing is a lot of people assume incorrectly that these crimes are mandated by Islam, but they are not….
"I undertook this issue not just because I am a woman, but because most people fight for human rights in general – political agendas, prison conditions, children's rights – but nobody is taking up this issue. And isn't it important to guarantee the right of a woman simply to live before fighting for any other laws?
"Since I started reporting on the honor killings, things have started to change for the better. When King Hussein opened the Thirteenth Parliament, he mentioned women and their rights – the first time a ruler had emphasized women and children. And now King Abdullah is following in his father's footsteps, with a new constitution where he put in two new sections, one on women. And he asked the prime minister to amend all the laws that discriminate against women. What was not included was a solution; we could begin with a shelter for women. Instead of putting women who seek haven from their families in prison, the government could have programs to rehabilitate them."
