It's one of the last great taboos: the murder of at least 20,000 women a year in the name of 'honour'. Nor is the problem confined to the Middle East: the contagion is spreading rapidly.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010 CANAN ALTINTAŞ DİYARBAKIR - RADİKAL

A 17-year-old woman found dead one month ago was allegedly murdered by her 15-year-old brother in an “honor killing” after she left the women’s shelter where she was staying, daily Radikal reported Wednesday.

(New York) July 18, 2010 -- The Indian government should urgently investigate and prosecute those responsible for the recent spurt in reported "honor" killings, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should also strengthen laws that protect against kinship, religion-based, and caste-based violence, and take appropriate action against local leaders who endorse or tolerate such crimes, Human Rights Watch said.

Murders to protect family or community "honor" have increased in recent months, in the northern states of Haryana, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh, where unofficial village councils, called khap panchayats, issue edicts condemning couples for marrying outside their caste or religion and condemn marriages within a kinship group (gotra), considered incestuous even though there is no biological connection. To enforce these decrees and break up such relationships, family members have threatened couples, filed false cases of abduction, and killed spouses to protect the family's "honor." Some local politicians and officials have been sympathetic to the councils' edicts, implicitly supporting the violence.

"Officials who fail to condemn village council edicts that end in murder are effectively endorsing murder," said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director for Human Rights Watch. "Politicians and police need to send these councils a strong message to stop issuing edicts on marriages."