Why did Aqsa Parvez die at the age of 16?If you ask her family, they will tell you she deserved to die because she broke the family's strict Islamic dress code and religious rules.
Aqsa arrived in Canada when she was 11 and fell in love with the Western culture that surrounded her at school and in the community.
She was excited about the idea of throwing off her hijab, wearing jeans, having private conversations with friends and going out and having fun.
Her "deviant" ways offended her family and her father decreed that she should die for refusing to follow the traditional Islamic ways.
On December 10, 2007 Aqsa's brother, Waqas, 26, strangled her to death in the family home on instructions from his father, although the father initially told police he killed his daughter and told his wife the same thing.
On Tuesday, Aqsa's father and brother, Muhammad Parvez and Waqas Parvez, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in a court in Mississaugua, Ontario. They now face automatic life sentences.
Read the story: Father, son plead guilty to Aqsa Parvez murder
Please read related column:"Stop disguising violence against women"
Aqsa's mother, Anwar Jan, tried to explain to police why her husband told her he killed their youngest child.
When police interviewed her she said her husband said he killed Aqsa because "this is my insult. My community will say, 'You have not been able to control your daughter.' This is my insult. She is making me naked."
Police wondered if things would have been different if the family had stayed in Pakistan. "He would have killed her there too," she told police.
Religion and culture have been used too often in cultures everywhere to justify horrendous criminal acts. And it is not reserved to one culture, religion or race.
There is nothing that could justify murder; there is nothing that could justify "control" of a daughter or anyone for that matter.
We do not own our children and must not dictate their lives. That is not culture; it's oppression and a violation of a child's dignity and basic rights.
The obligation of parents is to raise our children with dignity and respect for everyone, to teach them that everyone is equal and to educate them to be responsible members of a free and just society.
Bigotry cannot be used as a cultural or religious prop and in a civilised society it must never be accepted or tolerated.
The tragedy is that despite its policy of multiculturalism Canada has failed to integrate and educate immigrant families into the mainstream.
Sadly, I must admit that the policy encourages a measure of "cultural ghettoisation" in which Aqsa's story will be repeated.
This is not the first honour killing in our country and it is not the going to be the last. What happened in a Mississagua court room on Tuesday was commendable. Killers must be removed from society. But in the wider social sense it has not addressed the real problem.
But that's not the duty of the courts; it is the responsibility of our leaders.
It is time for politicians and those who are the primary definers of society to examine this social cancer and do something to cut it off, not just find someone or some group to blame for it.
Jai Parasram | Toronto, 15 June 2010
1 comment:
Good article, it is staggering the extent some will go in the name of culture. Culture though, is a misnomer, as violence against women is a global culture of masogyny.
The violence that you are referring to is patriarchy and masogyny, and these are virtues that society at large has rewarded and defended time and time again. It isn't tied to any culture, it's a global culture of male dominance, of the subordination of women to men, and the commercialization of women as property. Check out this article on honour killings: http://www.straight.com/article-246521/fazeela-jiwa-honour-killings-domestic-violence-call-it-what-it-male-violence-against-women
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