The defining moment in my life that shifted the way I was thinking...and brought me to ubuntu.
Great question. Tough to answer.
In the sense of living and breathing and working and playing.
Half The Sky brought to my attention the reality of honour killings.Quoted from the site www.genercide.org:
While reading Half the Sky, you read many counts of horrific honor killings in India, Pakistan and many other countries. Recently, I read about one that brings it even closer to home. A recent star of the Harry Potter films, who played Padma - the twin of Parvati Patil - was the victim of an attempted honor killing.
Star Afshan Azad fell in love with a man of a different religion and for this was almost deemed 'morally wrong' enough to die. She was beaten, but fortunately lived.
According to Gendercide.org, "Those who kill for honour [in Pakistan] are almost never punished. In the rare instances [that] cases reach the courts, the killers are sentenced to just two or three years."
It's also common practice for a man to burn or maim the face of a woman who has rejected or disobeyed him in some manner. To literally scar the woman for life.
To see the faces of many woman who are simply living their lives in the same way that we are, but being punished or killed for it, go to this blog. Don't forget them.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/honor_killings/
Read more:
http://www.gendercide.org/case_honour.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/02/0212_020212_honorkilling.html
Somehow, someway, this needs to stop. The more we know, the more educated we can become. The more educated we become together, the better chance we have.
"Honour" killings of women can be defined as acts of murder in which "a woman is killed for her actual or perceived immoral behavior." (Yasmeen Hassan, "The Fate of Pakistani Women," International Herald Tribune, May 25, 1999.) Such "immoral behavior" may take the form of marital infidelity, refusing to submit to an arranged marriage, demanding a divorce, flirting with or receiving phone calls from men, failing to serve a meal on time, or -- grotesquely -- "allowing herself" to be raped. In the Turkish province of Sanliurfa, one young woman's "throat was slit in the town square because a love ballad was dedicated to her over the radio." (Pelin Turgut, "'Honour' Killings Still Plague Turkish Province," The Toronto Star, May 14, 1998.)"Their perceived immoral behaviour. I feel sick to my stomach.
Star Afshan Azad fell in love with a man of a different religion and for this was almost deemed 'morally wrong' enough to die. She was beaten, but fortunately lived.
According to Gendercide.org, "Those who kill for honour [in Pakistan] are almost never punished. In the rare instances [that] cases reach the courts, the killers are sentenced to just two or three years."
It's also common practice for a man to burn or maim the face of a woman who has rejected or disobeyed him in some manner. To literally scar the woman for life.
To see the faces of many woman who are simply living their lives in the same way that we are, but being punished or killed for it, go to this blog. Don't forget them.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/honor_killings/
Read more:
http://www.gendercide.org/case_honour.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/02/0212_020212_honorkilling.html
Somehow, someway, this needs to stop. The more we know, the more educated we can become. The more educated we become together, the better chance we have.
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