Karo Kari is a practice that has gone on for centuries. Various cultures have allowed for the stoning, starving, or otherwise killing of their women if it is deemed they have in some way disgraced the family through adultery or other acts declared unsuitable for a woman. Contemporary times have seen this practice continue, now making its way onto Canadian soil where recent occurrences have increased the alacrity of the Canadian public. Conversely, hundreds of women have died at the hands of their partners in Canada with little to no headlines. The numbers of these cases far exceed the Karo Kari cases that have captured Canadian interest, yet these very instances of domestic violence have been merely a whisper in the ear of Canadian men and women for far too long.
Honour Killings Infecting Canada
The two latest Karo Kari victims; Shaher Bado Shahdady, strangled by her husband three weeks after moving into her own Scarborough apartment, and Vancouver's Ravinder Bhangu, whose husband walked into one of her classes and stuck an axe into her back to the horror of the onlookers. Both of these honour killings have occurred in Canada over the passed two months.
From 2002, there have been at least 13 murders in Canada in the name of this tradition. All have been male assailants killing their wives, daughters, or sisters after determining these women have committed acts that have brought irreparable shame to the family. Most of these Karo Kari instances have been front page news, lead off stories on varying broadcasts, or hot topics on talk radios, with the focus usually attached to some mention of the cultural or religious connection to this horrid tradition.
Canadian Women are Victims
But consider this. In the five years from 2002-2007, 212 women have lost their lives at the hands of their partners in Ontario alone. Consider that every six days a woman in Canada is murdered by her spouse or partner, including 67 deaths in 2009. Those numbers trump the amount of murders that have been identified as "honour killings" ever reported in Canada, yet there has been very little in the way of public outrage from the media, local feminist groups, or political parties with ideas and policies to mend this scar on Canadian society.
Murder under the guile of religious customs from a culture that is not common to our own seems to have presented Canadians with a scapegoat for the extenuating of these victims that are dying in precisely the same manner as the Karo Kari victims. One would hate to assume that because many of these extreme cases of domestic violence are associated with aboriginal women, Canadians are less sensitive to these heinous crimes being committed by and against their own citizens.
If Canadians are to face this issue of extreme domestic violence, they must first face themselves. Its women are being threatened, and that is besides the relatively recent Karo Kari curiosity that has invaded Canadian media. But remove the euphemism and recognize that women are dying almost every day in this country at the hands of their partners. That is the reality that all Canadians should be addressing.
www.cdnwomen.org (accessed august 17, 2011)
www.theglobeandmail.com "honour killings in canada even worse than we thought" (accessed august 13, 2011)
www.cobourgatheist.com "two more honour killings" (accessed august 13, 2011)
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