“Nobody can acquire honor by doing what is wrong”
I can't stop thinking about Tulay, a 15 year old girl killed by her own father in the name of protecting his honour! The father has now been convicted and put in prison for life! What a lenient sentence!
This practice of killing young women in the name of the family's honour exists in many African, Asian and Moslem cultures ... but we all find it hard that it exists here in Britain! Tulay is not the only female killed at the hands of her own family in Britain - and she won't be the last of such crimes either, unless those who administer this type of crime understand the full reasons behind this heinous crime and act accordingly to try and solve the problem as much as possible ... for it will not disappear completely!
Tulay went on a work experience placement while at school, met a man who was double her age and eventually moved in with him. A friend of hers told the BBC that Tulay told her that she was pregnant by him and so, fearing her family's reprisal, she wanted to leave home for good. Somehow, the father got her back home and premeditated and carried out her murder! He even asked her brother to kiss her goodbye because " you will never see your sister again"! So, the crime was premeditated alright! ... and that's always the case in this type of murder. Tulay is gone ... her body was never found! - while her mother kept silent and did not cooperate till years and years after her daughter disappeared in 1999!
At the trial, the experts, either British or those who came from Turkey to help with the investigation, said that Tulay was killed because she befriended a man from a different branch of Islam. They also said that the mother kept quite for years and years because she was afraid to raise the alarm because that meant she would be going against the men in her family and would perhaps be killed too! How convenient!
No! There are more complex reasons behind someone taking a knife to kill his or her own flesh and blood than that! A brutal, savage, barbaric and inhumane disposal of one's own child does not happen just because the man she befriended is from a different branch of this religion or that! Only those who practice, or believe in this kind of crime, never give the full picture - because it is in their interest not to, in the hope that if they ever need to do the act themselves, they would be able to get away with murder. Because of the ignorance of western authorities about the full motivation behind those crimes.
When I was a teenager, still living in Egypt, I knew a particular girl was a neighbour a few doors away from my parents house. She was not allowed by her family to go out alone, even standing out in her balcony was forbidden too. Her father decreed that there was no communicating with men in any way, even as just friends. She was also not to speak with 'westernised' girls as well - so she was mainly home after school and on her own all the time, apart from one or two friends who came from like minded families whom she saw or spoke to on the phone occassionally. Imprisoned, she hardly socialised, because, like herself, her friends were forbidden from going out too! ... and 'us' westernised girls', we kept away too - being young, we could not understand ... and we called them 'weirdos'! How uncaring is youth! :-( ... This girl was seen by another neighbour kissing in a car with a man in a dark area of Cairo where hide aways usually go and told her family - and h*ll broke loose! She was beaten with a belt till she was bruised all over. Was pulled out from school and was forcibly married to one of her father's relatives within a few months of the incident! But, she was lucky she was not killed for smearing the family's honour!
So, not everybody kills for 'honour', some intimidate and force instead. This is the more common type of protecting 'honour' as seen by people of this mentality in these parts of the world! Of any religion! That and the female genital mutilation too do happen regularly to young women albeit more the poorer and undereducated the social class! ... and both are practiced by many such people now living in Britain! ... and the authorities here seem to have no clue what to do to stop these vile practices that sometimes even end up in brutal murder as in Tulay's case!
Tulay was killed for befriending a man to start with, not only because he was from a different branch of Islam. And for running away and for losing her viginity out of wedlock - and for the possible pregnancy - and for going against her family's tradition as seen by her father .. for dancing the way she did ... etc .. etc! It is very evident from the video in the link that the whole family was dysfunctional to start with. A young girl with no care in the world dancing with her peers and the mother is dancing too ... while dad is sitting at the table madly eyeing his daughter and obviously contemplating something to do about what he perceived as an unruly way for a young woman to behave or dance so provocatively as he saw it - and with men too. It is evident from this video that the mother is the stronger one of the pair, and hence, she did not raise her daughter to what father believes to be the 'honourable' way but father could do nothing about the mother, so he went for the poor girl!
Her mother failed her ... and her father killed her!
So please do not excuse the mother for she too failed! And it is ridiculous to say she did not report her husband for years for fear of what might have happened to her! She could have always seeked refuge and protection from either social security and/or the police ... but she did not! ... I don't know of any normal mother, from any part of the world, who would have kept as quite following the disappearance of her daughter and for that extra long time too. Especially that she already knew about her own husband and his mentality re how women should behave! ... I do not excuse her!
There was talk at the trial that the family brought a certain set of values with them from Turkey when they came to this country, as if that is not the case that everyone, either in this country or abroad have the same of! We all have values that we 'try' to stick to - and these values always stem from one's roots! And roots do differ between different people, even of the same origin. Roots are important ... some can be modified but they can never all be completely forgotten.
No tree can stand erect without them, but will always fall, be overwhelmed and get swept away ... and so are people without roots too! ... but roots or not, we don't kill!
And this is where the problem here lies, the desperate ignorance that people here have about values that are sometimes not identical to those of the indigenous population. But unless you acknowledge this fact, more and more women will either be intimidated or even killed like Tulay! For example, Tulay's father was jailed for three years because prior to killing his daughter, he tried to hit/kill her boyfriend with an axe for befriending his daughter ... so, he deserves the imprisonment for this crime too. But nothing was reported of whether this 30 years old man was prosecuted or not for soliciting and impregnating a child, since Tulay was only 15 years old. I assume that maybe he wasn't since nothing was reported about that! Why?! ... and how many families here will be happy with kind of under age abuse of their child?
Tulay's father tried to sort out his problem himself and that ended in catastrophy due to his ignorance and inability to deal with and solve his problems. But why isn't there any support for such fathers and families like his? This murder would probably have never happened if the authorities had gone after the boy friend as well following the attack on him by the father - and IMO, although nothing excuses this father from this appalling crime too, he took both measures of attack and murder out of desperation, as there was no other avenue open for him to go to with his trouble!
Another story that I know of; one of my son's friends had a fight with his mother when they were 17 years old. He left the house and went to one of his friends ... mother tried several times to speak on the phone with that friend's mother to get her son back but the friend's mother told her that she would call the police if she ever even tried to see her son. Angry, humiliated and worried but afraid, she reluctantly kept away. This young man went home by himself 2 weeks later. He was sorry he ever left because, at the end, his friend's mother openly told him that he was not welcomed at her home anymore! ... as far as I understand, his mother had no idea of where to go to get help bring her son back beacuse he was over 16 and no longer a child according to British law ... and so, not knowing what to do or where to go, she lived in agony for those two weeks while he was away.
Crimes resulting from cultural differences will never be totally eliminated - but unless the authorities acknowledge that such differences exist and help parents as well as their children meet in the middle ... expect trouble as well as horrendous and heart crunching crimes like the murder of Tulay happen again! Alas, it seems that there is no proper awareness amongst social services, or other specialist organisations, hence allowing matters to get out of control due to not acknowledging and understanding other people's different sets of values. In Tulay's case, even the director of a Kurdish women's group, a Kurd herself, judging by her accent, simply mimicked what the British police was saying but did not highlight why such crimes happen or how they escalate!
I feel there need to be a branch of social services that should specialise in such cases and is accessible to those who need them through GPs, the police, social services and mybe a dedicated phone line too. This branch should be manned by people who understand both cultures, that of this country as well as the country of origin. Not just born here to parents of different origin, but people who have experienced living in both cultures for a good length of time, understand all those different values from both cultures and can solve problems as well as be the link between those children, their families and the British authorities. This branch should be accessible to either the parent or the child of families at risk- and should not only always take the child's side, but the parent too. Their first and foremost job should be to try to bring families with their children together whenever possible - and remove the child into care, or help a young adult to cope, only if everything else to reconciliate fails ! .... in the case of my son's friend, had this service been available, perhaps the young man would have had the chance to talk about his problems with his mother through with an officer who understands the culture. The mother would have had the same opportunity too. Perhaps the officer, if he found the problems to be trivial, would have been able to bring mum and son together again, thus avoiding the heartache for the mother and the indignity with staying where he was not wanted for the son - or the consequences of this problem had it been escalated somehow to perhaps the son ending in living rough, taking drugs ... and the like had this young man not decided himself to return home.
... and maybe poor Tulay would still have been alive today!
“One of the common failings among people is a failure to appreciate how dangerous the lack of understanding other people is”
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