Honor Killings and Crimes; Familial and Tribal Homicide

Abstract

Honor killings are directed mostly against women and girls. Although rarely, men can also be the victims of honor killings by members of the family of a woman with whom they are perceived to have an inappropriate relationship. The loose term “honor killing” applies to killing of both men and women in cultures that practice it. There is a strong positive correlation between violence against women—as well as LGBT—and women’s lack of social power and equality on the one hand, and a baseline of development, associated with access to basic resources, health care, and human capital, such as literacy on the other. In a male-dominated society, there is more inequality between men, and women lose out not just physically and economically, but crucially because men who feel subordinated will often try to regain a sense of their authority in turn by excessive subordination of those below them, i.e. women, although both men and women in such societies suffer more violence and worse health. Some women who bridge social divides, publicly engage other communities, or adopt some of the customs or the religion of an outside group may be attacked. In countries that receive immigrants, some otherwise low-status immigrant men and boys have asserted their dominant patriarchal status by inflicting honor killings on female family members who have participated in public life, for example, in feminist and integration politics.