Killing on the grounds of honour: nothing excuses it for the victim
\nA true story
\nSpecial to the national campaign to combat violence against women
\nPalestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution\u2026
\nZein Asqalan - Nablus
\nLaila was nothing but an innocent girl who knew nothing of her childhood but playing and amusing herself with the neighbours' girls, and who never thought of anything but a blonde-braided doll her mother bought for her to keep her company while she slept. No one expected that her life, full of delight, would end in killing..
\nLaila, sixteen years old, as usual with her pure smile, said goodbye to her friend and went to their house. But a young man of twenty-three years of age abducted her and put a drugging substance over her mouth until she lost consciousness, and took her in a jeep to a place outside the village.<\/p>\n
An eyewitness
\nLaila's friend, who had said goodbye to her moments earlier, was the only one who heard her scream at the moment of her abduction. But Laila's house was like the rest of the rural houses in the village, isolated and far from the other homes, so no one else heard her.<\/p>\n
Laila's friend, who had said goodbye to her at the time, says: \"I heard Laila's scream and she was close to her house, but I did not expect that they had abducted her; there was no one in the street at the time.\"
\nShe goes on: \"Laila had told me before she left me that there was no one at home because her mother was visiting her grandfather's house in another village and her father was at work.\"<\/p>\n
According to what the police in the felonies department stated, the young man raped Laila and then threw her in an area full of dense trees near the scene of the crime while she was still alive. The crime had been committed near a factory in an area very far from the village. But fate willed that the owner of the factory next to which the crime was committed heard the child's screams and rushed to the place, and the young man had fled. According to what the felonies department added, the girl at the time uttered a few words that helped the factory owner to find her family and her house, where she was completely broken down..<\/p>\n
She lost her virginity
\nA state of anxious waiting and panic came over the family, and something of tension and worry affected them, for Laila had been absent a whole day, and the family left no place unsearched for her..
\nAnd when the factory owner arrived with the girl at her house, both he and the child in a very bad psychological state, the family were shocked by the incident, after they too had been in a bad state, where the parents had asked about her at the hospitals, at the relatives' and the neighbours', and had informed the police. And as soon as the man entered with the girl into her house she fainted at once, so the family went to her and she was taken to hospital quickly.
\nSpeaking to us, the treating doctor says: \"They brought me the child in a bad state, for she was suffering from very severe bleeding, and it was clear that someone had had sex with her in a brutal way that cost her her virginity. But we were able to bring the situation under control inside the intensive care room, where we did what was necessary for her and also helped her to wake up, and it was very difficult to tell the family what had happened.\"
\nHe adds: \"And away from any emotion, I asked to speak to her father alone, in the hope that he would understand the situation, and I told him that his daughter had been raped and had lost her virginity, and I set about calming him, but he began screaming and kept repeating: what has she done to my life to bring shame upon me?\"
\nAnd after a few days Laila left the hospital, having lost her speech in a way that surprised everyone, so that she could not recount what had happened and could not express her emotion except by weeping, and she refused to let anyone come near her, such as her father, her brother or any of her male relatives.<\/p>\n
The family's honour
\nShame, scandal, a crime that must be buried: with these words the family expressed what had happened, and no one turned to Laila, the wronged child who had lost her future because of an evil whim of one of the young men. No one worked to help Laila except her mother, who kept praying for her continuously..
\nThe crime, which left Laila and her family with shame as they put it, made all the relatives take a negative stance towards what had happened, and everyone demanded that the girl be removed from the village, either by marrying her to the young man who had raped her or to one of her relatives to cover her up.. But where is the criminal? He had fled, and some of them demanded that she be removed from the village by any means.
\nIt is worth noting that Laila's family is a simple family, not educated or cultured, where everyone looked at Laila as the outstanding girl within the family on whom many hopes had been pinned. But their ignorance robbed them of any feeling of tenderness towards her or even pity for her condition, for the fault was not hers. The mother's stance, by contrast, was entirely different, and she asked the father to deal with the matter with full rationality and not to act rashly. The mother, who carries a warm heart, spoke to us about what happened after strong insistence from us, and told us that she realised the seriousness of the situation but wanted to stand by her child and not to cast her into an unknown fate, because she is a child and has the right to return to live her childhood with all the joy, play and study in it.
\nThe mother says: \"I tried to calm the situation, but Laila's elder brother was very agitated and kept calling on my husband to get rid of this scandal, for it would bring shame upon us. I repeatedly tried to stop them from coming near my daughter, but.........\"<\/p>\n
The killing of shame
\nLaila's bad condition did not spare her life, and she could not defend herself or even utter a single word to say that she had not gone of her own will, despite also the doctor's diagnosis, who said that the tests indicated that she had been drugged, which affected her negatively in addition to the incident.
\nThe shock that struck everyone around her, particularly the father and the brother, stripped mercy from their hearts, and their only concern was to get rid of the shame in any way. According to her mother, who added that the brother took the girl at night on the pretext that he would take her for a short drive in his car so that she could come out of the difficult psychological state she was suffering, and the brother convinced the mother of that and the father followed him. The brother and the father returned, but Laila did not return with them, for her brother killed her at the contriving of her father in the darkness of night and the blackness of conscience, and threw her in a rubbish dump in an area very far from their home.
\nThe mother, whose words were mixed with tears of regret and pain, goes on: \"I have disowned my murderer son before God. I feel guilt and blame continuously. I wish I had not allowed him to take her from me. I wish I had been killed and my daughter Laila had not been killed. My daughter is innocent and God knows that. I know she was killed unjustly, and I have demanded that the severest punishments be imposed on him because he showed no mercy to his wronged sister..\"<\/p>\n
Please impose the severest punishments on the perpetrator
\nAccording to what the security officer responsible for the case file at the police told us: \"The son was imprisoned on the basis of the penal code in force with us, and we also imprisoned the young man who raped her for 25 years, and the father was forced to pay a large fine. We also tried as far as possible to keep the story within the family's framework, because society in general and rural society in particular does not understand such cases.\"<\/p>\n
The forensic doctor who examined the body says: \"After we examined the body it became clear that the child had been stabbed with a sharp knife several times in the chest and the abdomen, and also that parts of the body were somewhat charred, for there had been an attempt to burn her after she was stabbed. According to what we reached in the examination, the body was burned at exactly eleven o'clock at night.\"
\nLaila, who was a child, knew nothing of her life but a little amusement and study, and soon came to realise the injustice of this world, so that she no longer knew anything but the colour of her shroud, and she went to her Creator, where justice remained raised up in heaven.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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