Jordan Times
Monday, March 30, 1998
JT reporter awarded for her coverage on crimes of
honour
By Amy Henderson
AMMAN — A local reporter received an international human
rights award earlier this month for her activism in exposing the
brutal phenomenon of crimes of honour in Jordan through her work
as a crime reporter for the Jordan Times.
The Reebok Human Rights Award 1997 was presented to Rana Husseini
at an awards ceremony in New York and recognised her
“ground-breaking investigations” in exposing the
atrocity of so-called crimes of honour through the pages of this
newspaper.
Actress Glenn Close, who presented Ms. Husseini with the award,
said that her investigations and articles “have illuminated
the truth about honour killings and have explored the depths of
collusion between family members and authorities.”
Ms. Husseini has been the only reporter in Jordan to consistently
document the issue since she began her work as a crime reporter
in 1993. Her stories have been subject to criticism from those
who contend that Ms. Husseini is tarnishing the image of Jordan.
“I want people to know that I didn’t do this to win
anything. And I don’t do this to tarnish the image of my
country,” she said. “I do it because [this crime] is
wrong, and people need to know that it’s happening so we can
put am end to it.”
Honour crimes are defined as those in which men kill female
relatives for bringing shame to the family by their “immoral
behaviour” — which can be defined as speaking to or
being seen with a strange man — or even on the mere
suspicion of immoral behaviour. In this decade, 200 Jordanian
women have been murdered under the pretext of defending family
honour. In 1997, 23 out of 25 victims were killed on the mere
suspicion of having engaged in “immoral behaviour,” and
so far this year, eight women have been murdered by male
relatives in crimes of honour. The penal code absolves these men
from any substantial punishment, although Ms. Husseini says these
laws are approaching abolition as officials are becoming more
aware of the scope of the problem.
His Majesty King Hussein in his Speech From the Throne put the
issue of violence against women on the parliamentary agenda last
November with an implicit reference to honour killings.
He said that crimes of honour are a “flagrant contradiction
to our ongoing calls to preserve human dignity and all human
rights.
Earlier this summer, His Royal Highness Crown Prince Hassan
called on law enforcement officials to apply the law against
domestic abusers.
Ms. Husseini said that authorities are reluctant to cooperate or
divulge information about crimes of honour “because of their
sensitivity,” but said she feels that this attitude is
changing.
“I have also noticed that the coroners and pathologists are
talking more and more about this in their lectures,” she
said.
Officials estimate that the number of honour crimes actually
committed each year may be at least twice as high as the number
reported. Ms. Husseini said that if the law changes, there is a
possibility that “honour crimes” — which are often
reported by the families of the victims themselves — may go
“underground” or be reported as accidental deaths.
“But I have noticed also that the coroners and pathologists
are starting to investigate reported ‘accidental
deaths’ or ‘suicide’ of women to see if they may
actually have been crimes of honour,” she said.
Ms. Husseini said that prior to her work as a reporter, she was
familiar with the term “honour crime,” but it was only
when she started reporting on crime that the brutality of such
crimes played on her conscience.
“There was a story of a 16 year old girl that really moved
me,” she said. The girl was raped by her brother, and became
pregnant. Her other brother tried unsuccessfully to kill her, and
after that she was forced to have an abortion. Her family then
married her off to a man nearly 50 years her senior who divorced
the girl six months later.
“On May 31, 1994, her other brother killed her and her
family blamed her for seducing the brother who raped her,”
she recounts. “She was a victim six times. She was only 16.
When we published that story, a well-known, U.S.-educated woman
called the paper to complain that this was not an accurate image
of our country. It really pushed me to pursue this issue.”
“I do hope that one day, we will reach the point where I
won’t have to write or report on these crimes anymore,”
she says.
The Reebok award also entails a cash prize to further the work of
each recipient. Ms. Husseini said she is considering establishing
a research centre that could be part of a larger network dealing
with human and women’s rights concerns.
The Reebok Human Rights Award is presented annually to four human
rights activists around the world. Other recipients were Anthony
Jones (United States) for advocacy against unlawful police
intimidations, harassment and brutality; Abraham Gebreyesus
(Eritrea), an activist demanding international attention to the
human cost of anti-personnel land mines; and Dydier Kamundu
(Democratic Republic of Congo) for fact-finding investigations
into ethnic and political violence in the Congo under President
Laurent Kabila.
This is the second award that Ms. Husseini has received for her
work. An exposé entitled “Murder in the Name of
Honour,” published in 1994 earned her first prize in the
1995 MEDNEWS award. The report was an analysis of honour
killings, with highlights from three major cases of these crimes
that occurred in 1993 and 1994.