The prosecutor of Jordan’s Major Felonies Court has charged two men with premeditated murder in connection with honor killings that occurred in the past several months.
“Honor killings,” which are often reported as “family disputes,” are those in which “a woman is murdered by relatives who believe she had brought shame on the family by committing adultery or engaging in premarital sex.”
On July 7, the prosecutor charged a man with murder for repeatedly stabbing his 15-year-old daughter when he saw her talking with someone on her cell phone. The accused, who confessed to the crime after turning himself in, told the police that the phone call made him suspect that his daughter was having an affair.
The prosecutor also charged a man with murder in May for burning his 19-year-old daughter to death while she was asleep. During his interrogation after he turned himself in to the police, the accused likewise stated that he suspected that his daughter, who was separated from both her first and second husbands, was having an affair.
Honor Killings in Jordan
In 2017, Human Rights Watch reported that Jordan had seen an increase in honor killings since 2016, reporting that 15 to 20 women and girls were burned, beaten, or stabbed to death by family members annually. BBC News also stated in 2020 that 17 honor killings had taken place that year. Additionally, last January, the New Arab newspaper reported that a Jordanian Women’s Solidarity Association report had revealed that the killing of women and children by family members in the country had gone up by 94% in 2022.
The Jordanian Penal Code
There are two provisions in the Jordanian Penal Code that allow a family member to receive lighter penalties for honor killings, according to the Project on Middle Democracy. To illustrate, article 340 (a) of the penal code stipulates that whoever discovers his wife, or one of his female relatives, committing adultery with another person, and kills one or both of them, is exempt from punishment for the offense of murder.
Furthermore, article 98 of the code provides that a perpetrator will be exempted from the punishment for murder if his criminal act was due to “a state of extreme anger in response to a wrongful and serious act on the part of the victim.”
Calls for More Legal Protection
Jordanian defense attorney Sakhr Khasawneh claims that rules applied in many Arab countries see murderers who are pardoned by the victims’ families dodge the harshest penalties. In response to such practices, Salma al-Nims, chief of the Jordanian National Committee for Women’s Affairs, has called for more legal protection of women in Jordan because, in her view, the penal code encourages these kinds of crimes “by recognizing mitigating excuse” for perpetrators.
George Sadek, Law Library of Congress
August 9, 2023
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