Iraqi Girl Killed by Father for Military Love Affair
A 17-year-old Iraqi girl has been murdered by her father in an ‘honour killing’ after falling in love with a British soldier in Basra, The Observer can reveal.
Rand Abdel-Qader was killed after her family discovered she had formed a friendship with a 22-year-old infantryman she knew as Paul. Rand, who met the soldier while working on an aid project for displaced families, was suffocated by her father and then hacked at with a knife. All the time he was calling out that his honour was being cleansed, said Rand’s mother.
The father was arrested, held for two hours, then released without charge. ‘Not much can be done when we have an “honour killing”,’ said Sgt Ali Jabbar of Basra police. ‘You are in a Muslim society and women should live under religious laws.’
Rand’s mother, who divorced her husband after the killing, is now in hiding from her family and being looked after by a local charity. ‘She has been threatened by her husband’s family and is very scared,’ said a charity spokeswoman.
An MoD spokesman said there was no official policy on advising troops how to behave with Iraqi women, indicating that Paul would not have been told that their friendship might be putting her life at risk. ‘They are not told: don’t go and fall in love.’
Though this is believed to be the first ‘honour killing’ involving a British soldier, there were 47 such killings of young women in Basra last year, though only three convictions, said the Basra Security Committee.
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From what I’ve read, this wasn’t even a love affair. . .just a chaste little crush.
Here are a couple ideas:
1. Why don’t we start economically boycotting countries that continue to treat their women like this and the companies that do business with them? We could do for women what the boycott of South Africa did for blacks when they were living under apartheid.
2. Why don’t we write to our representatives and leaders and demand that they withhold some meaningful portion of our aid to these countries unless and until they materially, measurably, sustainably improve their human rights track records?
Ellen R. Sheeley, Author
“Reclaiming Honor in Jordan”