By GAUTAMAN BHASKARAN

MADRAS, India — The act of killing is not so surprising when senseless brutality, especially against women, engulfs a community. Thousands of women are murdered every year by their families in the name of "honor." This heinous crime cuts across continents, with most killings going unreported. When they are reported, the perpetrators are seldom punished, because the families or the society concerned may view the dead women as deserving of punishment.

Police fear victims of honour crime in Tayside may be suffering in silence because they can see no way of accessing help without bringing further shame on their families (writes Graham Huband).
The spotlight will be turned on the normally taboo subject of forced marriage and honour-based violence at a major conference organised by Tayside Police next month. The issue — which predominantly affects ethnic minority communities — is rarely spoken of in public, and police fear victims may never come forward because of a lack of support services that can guarantee their safety.

November 1, 2007 -- Washington, DC –Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D-DE) and Ranking Member Richard Lugar (R-IN) introduced the International Violence Against Women Act, groundbreaking legislation which will, for the first time, integrate the United States’ efforts to end gender-based violence into U.S. foreign assistance programs.

Suha Philip Ma’ayeh, Foreign Correspondent

* Last Updated: July 11. 2008 3:06AM UAE / GMT

AMMAN // When Urweh Zreiqat, a TV presenter, asked a group of university students to define honour in one of his talk shows, most said it was related to ethics, honesty, dignity, reputation and loyalty.

None of them mentioned a woman’s hymen, or her perceived fidelity, two of the biggest causes of so-called honour killings in Jordan. That, however, remains one of the leading drivers of murder in the country.

Photo: Muhammad al-Jabri/IRIN
Three married girls (aged eight, 12 and 10) during a public discussion by civil society organisations on child marriage

SANAA, 22 September 2008 (IRIN) - Much more needs to be done to improve the status of women in Yemen, the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula, in line with the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), officials said.

By Rana Husseini
Jordon Times

AMMAN - A 19-year-old who killed his divorced sister in the name of family honour when he was a minor in September 2006, walked free from the Criminal Court on Monday after receiving a reduced sentence.

The court sentenced the defendant, who was 17 at the time of the murder, to serve 16 months at a juvenile centre after convicting him of stabbing his 24-year-old sibling to death at their family's home on September 19.

Islamist deaths squads are hunting down gay Iraqis and summarily executing them

Peter Tatchell
guardian.co.uk
Thursday September 25 2008 07:00 BST

Some of the links in this article will take you to sites containing images of violence which you may find disturbing

MONROVIA, 24 September 2008 (IRIN) - Thousands of young girls annually prepare for their initiation into a women’s secret association, Sande Society, which operates mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. As part of their initiation, young women take a vow of secrecy after weeks of training in the forest, promising not to not tell uninitiated girls or men what happens to them, to assume new names, and to have their clitorises cut off - known as female
genital mutilation (FGM) - according to women in the secret society.

A Pacific political leader has told the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) that the region’s girls are raised to feel inferior to boys and men, with culture and custom often invoked to justify discrimination and violence against girls.

“The girl child is, in many countries, typically at the bottom of the hierarchy and socialised to a sense of inferiority,” said The Honorable Willy Telavi, Tuvalu’s Minister for Home Affairs.