Picture courtesy of I Change, the group started by Esraa Tayseer Kudair and her team who organised the protest against 'honour' killings in Jordan. Some rights reserved. With banners that read ‘kill her, you will be protected’, ‘there is no honour in killing’ and ‘justifying crime is a crime,’ the campaigners, many of them high school students, expressed their horror and outrage at the growing number of women murdered in so-called ‘honour’ crimes in Jordan over the past 12 months.
The demonstration was led by 17-year-old student activist Esraa Tayseer Kudair through her group I Change to spotlight legal provisions that, she says, represent a “license to kill.” Pointing in particular to Article 340 of the Jordanian Penal Code, she says, “Criminals can receive a lower sentence if the crime is related to family honour so what’s to stop them? It’s like they are giving them excuses to carry out these crimes.”
Describing her shock and sadness every time reports surface of another woman brutally murdered in the name of family ‘honour’, Kudair says she feels compelled to act. I Change is planning visits to schools around Amman to lecture on the criminal dimension of honour killings, which are still seen as a means of resolution in some Jordanian communities. “We’re the new generation and it’s up to us to work together and change things,” Kudair says.
