By Yasmine S. Hakimian
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

JERASH, Jordan – On December 1, an unidentified Jordanian man was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison for strangling his 16-year-old married sister. Using wire and his sister’s scarf, the 20-year-old man strangled his sister to cleanse his family’s honor. The man testified it took 30 minutes to strangle his sister to death. He killed her in January in the Gaze refugee camp in the town of Jerash after she visited a female friend.

Girls younger than 18 can legally wed in Jordan. The girl was married for six months at the time of her death.

The presiding judge on the case, Judge Hassan Amayreh, reported the man confessed to the killing. He testified to killing his sister to cleanse his family’s honor after her husband complained that she regularly disappeared from home without a reason. Investigations indicated the girl was visiting her female friend when she wasn’t at home.

Judge Amayreh explained he originally sentenced the man to a 15-year prison term on November 30. However, the judge reduced the sentence since the girl’s family gave up their legal rights. In Jordan, prison sentences are reduced if the family drops the charges against the person who committed the honor killing.

Despite continuous campaigns by local and international human rights activists, those who commit honor killings receive reduced sentences because parliament has refused to reform the penal code to ensure harsher sentences.

Between 15 and 20 women are murdered each year in the name of “honor” in Jordan. Last year around 18 honor killings were recorded.

In the past, Jordan has been criticized for giving lenient sentences in so-called honor killing cases. Some honor killings have carried jail sentences of just six months.

According to the United Nations, over 5,000 women and girls are killed every year by family members in honor killings. These crimes occur where cultures believe that a woman’s unsanctioned sexual behavior brings such shame on the family that the female must be murdered. Honor killings have resulted from talking to a man or in suffering rape.

Honor killings are a controversial issue within the Muslim world. Although a tradition in some teachings of Islam, they are increasingly criticized by Westerners and moderate Muslims around the world.

For more information, please see:

Bare Naked Islam – It Took Him 30 Minutes to Strangle his Sister to Death with a Metal Wire and Her Own Scarf – 3 December 2008

International Campaign Against Honour Killings – Girl Strangled Slowly in Sick ‘Honour Killing’ – 2 December 208

WA Today – ‘Honour Killing’: Man Strangles Sister – 2 December 2008

BBC – Jail for Jordan ‘Honour Killing’ – 1 December 2008