Taking the 'honor' out of killing women

DIYARBAKIR, TURKEY — Desperately unhappy, 21-year-old Sahe Fidan left the husband she despised and sought refuge in her parents' home. They refused to take her in. A married woman can leave her husband only in a coffin, they told her.

Fidan returned to the husband, and she left him in a coffin. A few weeks ago, she was found hanged in the bathroom, her infant son strapped to her back with a sheet.

Her corpse was discovered when the baby, unharmed, began to cry. Fidan had committed suicide.

Or had she?

After her death in a village in southeastern Turkey, another version circulated. Some activists and officials suspect that Fidan may have joined the ranks of Turkish women forced to kill themselves, or whose slayings are disguised to look self-inflicted.

The killing of women and girls by male relatives who think the females have brought shame to the family's honor is an atrocity that has plagued Turkey and other Islamic countries for generations. Thousands of women have died, been attacked or compelled to commit suicide in so-called honor killings.

In Turkey, the government has finally taken action. Under pressure from an invigorated women's movement and eager to win approval from the European Union, the government has launched a major campaign against honor killings, at a level and with a breadth virtually unheard of in the Islamic world.

Turkish imams have joined pop music stars and soccer celebrities to produce TV spots and billboard ads condemning all forms of violence against women. Broaching a topic that remains largely taboo in many conservative societies, the nation's top Islamic authority has declared honor killing a sin.

Late last year, jail sentences for men and boys who commit the crime were stiffened, and new provisions in the penal code make it harder for a court to reduce sentences. (As recently as 10 months ago, in a typical case, the life sentence of a young man who had killed his sister was substantially reduced because the judges decided he had been "provoked." He had buried her up to her neck in rocks after she was impregnated in a rape.)

In cities and towns with the highest honor killing rates, officials working with advocacy groups are holding town hall meetings and setting up rescue teams and hotlines for endangered women and girls.