Gul Meena who is 17 is a victim of a near honor killing in
her home country Afghanistan. At the age of 12 she was married off to a man who
was 60 years old. This man would repeatedly abuse her and she would go to her
family for support and tell them what happened. She was surprised with how they
treated her when she came for help. They wold hit her and tell her to go back
to her husband because that is her life now. Gul Meena knew that this was not
something she wanted to put up with any longer and decided to run away after 5
years of being married. She met young a man and left with him. Her family found
out that she had ran away and some days later older her brother came and found
them and he killed her friend and almost hacked her to death 15 times with an
axe. The only reason that she is alive is because her brother thought she was
dead after she passed out from her injuries and because a stranger found her in
a pool of her own blood. Meena was rushed to the Emergency Department of
Nangarhar Reginala Medical Centre. Neurosurgeon Zamirruddin Khalid did not
think she would survive due to the extent of her injuries which included her
brain partially hanging out of her skull. It was thought that she was not going
to make it at that point. Her family has disowned her at this point and knew
she was at a hospital and was fighting for her life. Fortunately for Meena the
hospital let her stay for 2 months and paid for her medicine. She was then sent
to the American-Afghan organization Women for Afghan women. She currently is in
this shelter being taking care. While it is important that her life was
sustained she has another issue to face. If Meena leaves the shelter and
returns home they are going to kill her because of the shame that she brought
to her family. There has been action taken to persecute those who take on this act
of violence but it still a practice that is pervasive in Afghanistan. Three are
14 shelters that currently serve women like Meena and these shelters may be
pulled if international forces pull out of Afghanistan at the end of 2014.
Women like Meena who do not have an education and are homeless will not have anywhere
to go and will be subject to the treatments that they were receiving more and
likely death. Meena says that she wish that she was dead and has attempted suicide
before she ran away from her husband and when she arrived at the shelter but
she was stopped from doing it there.
Afghanistan is not the only country that still practices
honor killings regardless of legislation. It seems that because some cultures
are historically patriarchal that they see these honor killings as just and
that those who try to come in and change what is happening in these cultures
based on this issue are out of line. When is it ok for others to come in and
try to change issues like this? Regardless of gender should men and women both
be allowed to have secure lives? Whenever women are abused based on gender and
are killed it becomes another issue entirely and not something based on culture
anymore. Now this issue is based on sustaining human life and that all people
have the right to live and this is being violated by these acts of crime. Honor
killings may not be seen as crimes everywhere though due to culture or that
there may not be laws put in place to stop these killings.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/04/world/asia/afghanistan-honor-killing-survivor/index.html?iref=allsearch
Chanel Martin
4/8/13
3:06pm
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