Young women are dying around the world because their family (read male) honour has been damaged by their behaviour. This is primitive barbaric nonsense.

The first link below details the murder in Brampton of a teenage girl. Not of any particular religion, she died at home, killed by her father and stepmother. No motive given.

The second link, a young woman killed by her brother and father, because she behaved like a normal Canadian teenager, rebelling against a lifestyle that condemned her to complete control by any and all males in her family.

The national geographic article and the one from the UN tells us how many girls are killed for reasons like this one, or because she didn’t bring enough dowry! The marriages of course went forward, the dowry taken, the girl killed and then, I suppose another took her place, so that the groom’s family collected twice.

The UN article makes it clear that this is institutionalized violence against women, with no or little penalty because of the “honour” involved, or the religion.

It is and always has been about control, power, and money. The religious argument is a convenient screen behind which violent abusers may hide. The screen should be removed; the perpetrators revealed for the abusing cowards that they are. There is no difference between the deaths of the young girl in Brampton and the young girl in Toronto. Both killed by the males in their family, whose duty should have been to protect them. They are murderers and child abusers, nothing more. And they never had any honour to lose.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/06/15/brampton-teen-homicide.html

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/06/15/parvez-guilty-plea.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/02/0212_020212_honorkilling.html

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=33971&Cr=violence+against+women&Cr1