MEMINI: Honour Killings – Urban Times

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When Noor made the decision to live with her boyfriend, instead of conform to her family’s pressure for arranged marriage, tensions arose between her father and her. On October 20, 2009 in an Arizona parking lot Noor’s father attempted to run over his daughter and the mother of her boyfriend his Jeep. Noor spent two weeks in coma fighting for her life, but died as a result of her injuries. Source: MEMINI

MEMINI, is an international voluntary organisation, which aims to ensure stories of honour killing are told. MEMINI, which means ‘remembrance’ in Latin, works to bring to light the many women and girls who are victims of honour killing to call on government to establish more laws against such a terrible crime. Established by Deeyah, a former Norwegian singer with Pashtun and Punjabi backgrounds, MEMINI tries to raise awareness about honour killing.

Honour killing is a practice which occurs when a person is killed by another member of her family or community. The murder happens because of honour reasons as the victim has brought, or believed to have brought, dishonour to the family or to the community to which she belongs.

Speaking exclusively to Urban Times about honour killing, Deeyah said:

The purpose of honour killings is to remove the perceived shame, embarrassment or dishonour felt by a family, a clan, a tribe or a community that has a very strong group identity.These killings typically are intended to remove all signs of the person who has “offended” the collective. I have worked with this topic for many years and what has always made my heart hurt is in addition to the horrors and violence the victims of such crimes face is this intention of the killers to wipe out all signs of any existence of these young women

Not only are these murders so brutal and not only are the victims subjected to the ultimate betrayal of their family and community but the sheer tragedy of the people closest to them who should have loved them and cared about them and mourned them instead showed their conditional love and stole the life, dreams and potential of their own children.

Deeyah, who also won an award for her project Sisterhood, an initiative designed to empower young Muslim women by encouraging artistic expressions across creative disciplines, added.

Talking about MEMINI, Deeyah said that she wanted to create a special place for these women; a place which acknowledged their existence:

I wanted to create an online space where we could mourn them, think of them and acknowledge their life and that they were in fact here, to respect them, honour them and remember them.  Together with just one of my dear friends we built this space of remembrance.  Since its launch we have received the time and support of volunteers from all around the world who are helping us in writing, researching, documenting and honouring these martyrs of love and courage by remembering them.  I am deeply thankful for everyone’s support, dedication and care. We of course cannot bring back these young lives but what we can do is defy the intentions of the murderers by honouring, respecting and remembering the ones who have been so brutally taken away

The reason why Deeyah decided to set up MEMINI in the first place was:

to remember, love and honour the ones who have been sacrificed for the safe of ‘family honour’; to raise awareness of honour killings worldwide; to help people see the real faces of this tragedy and to hopefully contribute towards positive change; and beyond everything with dignity and love to honour the memory of the lives lost

According to the UN, more than 5,000 womenand girls are killed each year globally by members of their own family. By acting upon honour matters, men succeed in maintaining the power in families and communities by denying women’s fundamental rights to be free to make their own decisions about their own lives.

Heshu Yones was 16 when her father discovered she had a relationship with a classmate. He attempted to force her to marry a cousin in Kurdistan, and subjected her to virginity testing. He stabbed Heshu to death at their West London home, because he feared she was becoming westernised. Source: MEMINI

Speaking about the response received so far, Deeyah said:

The response so far has been very positive.  We’ve only had some emails with people complaining and cursing us for bringing the communities where this happens into negative light and attention.  Of course the intent of MEMINI is not to stereotype any communities but rather to highlight this crime which is happening and we can not deny it is happening. By remaining silent about it we are emboldening the perpetrators, the intent of MEMINI is the very opposite of that, to expose it by showing the real faces of this tragic patriarchal notion of honour that is taking thousands of lives globally

Moreover, talking about the different communities hit by the tragic reality of honour killing, Deeyah added:

The communities in which these killings occur are strictly patriarchal and built on social and family structures that are interdependent where the good of the group is more important than the wishes of the individual, and the sexual behaviours of women are guarded and protected almost at all costs. Even though there is a popular trend to attribute honour killings to just the Muslim community, this is not actually accurate and only gives a very limited view of how big this issue in fact really is– the communities and societies with these notions of honour and these family structures where honour killings happen in fact cross religious groups. This does not excuse or reduce the fact that this must stop regardless of whatever communities this happens within

Being an entirely volunteer driven initiative, MEMINI exclusively counts on the work of its incredible volunteers who are dedicated to keep the memory of these women alive

via theurbn.com