Pain carries along with it a burden, sometimes visible, sometimes hidden. You and I both understand this, we have all experienced it. And undoubtedly, we too have used it to our advantage, feigning strength while at our weakest.
From Hammurabi's Code to the New Testament to the Quran, women, indentured servants, and homosexuals have historically been excluded from the divine dignities of morals imposed.
And so in the relative safety of Kurdistan in northern Iraq, a story has surfaced of a young woman who was nearly beaten to death and is now hiding in a women's shelter in the northeastern city of Sulaimaniyah. "They started to beat me without even letting me speak," she said.
Her uncles, brothers and her father took their turns until she fell slumped unconscious, bleeding profusely with a broken hand. Her crime – she spoke candidly of love, romance and sex. Her boyfriend secretly recorded the conversation on his mobile phone. He passed it onto a friend who then passed it on to her family and the "honor" killing ensued. Remarkably, she survived.
Boyfriends, partners, husbands, are making secret mobile phone recordings of their wives or girlfriends in Iraq and Kurdistan. Some women are undoubtedly blackmailed, others just killed. In Kurdistan, the first reported case was in 2004. Mobile footage of a 17 year-old girl having sex was circulated. She was dead two days later.
Her story however is not unique. Either more women are suffering from honor killings or those who are surviving are somehow finding the courage to speak out and make their case heard. The official Kurdish count stands at 106 cases in 2005 to 266 in 2006 though it is probable most cases go unreported.
In a 2005 address to the Council on Foreign Relations, President George Bush had this to say about Mosul , "In places like Mosul and Najaf, residents are seeing tangible progress in their lives. They’re gaining a personal stake in a peaceful future, and their confidence in Iraq's democracy is growing. The progress of these cities is being replicated across much of Iraq — and more of Iraq's people are seeing the real benefits that a democratic society can bring."
Two years later, bystanders applauded and recorded with their mobiles as men stoned to death a teenage girl. This was on a street in Bashiqa, a small town near Iraq's second largest city of Mosul.
