Background:
Femicide is a
cross-cultural problem that has not been adequately explored.
Several political, cultural, legal, economic and religious factors have
affected and strengthened the prevalence of Famicide in the Arab world
including Palestine. The occurrence of such crimes exists but
little evidence is available regarding its characteristics, nature and
scope of its practice. According to Kevorkian (2004: 9) in
Palestine “data gathered from the Al-Aman hotline during a
six-month period showed that 20 out of 187 clients who called the
hotline were under threat of being killed.”
Moreover, seven cases of women murdered in the name of honor killing
were committed within a three-month period in Gaza alone.
Stabbing, slaying, suffocating, burning, beating, electrocuting and
forced suicide are the methods that were used to kill the victims.
Palestine is a
unique
case where the country went through several ruling authorities
including the British, Jordanian and Israeli where Palestinians had
never been given the opportunity to govern themselves.
Therefore, family, civil and social disputes including femicide cases
have been dealt with through tribal system even under the Palestinian
National Authority PNA. The PNA has been utilizing the tribal
system as a result of having inexperienced police to deal with femicide
cases, the ineffectiveness of the formal judicial system in cases
related to women sexuality and the historical and cultural reasons that
prevent various security apparatuses to intervene. Depending
on the tribal system to deal with femicide cases has deteriorated the
suffering of women where various solutions to the problem were
found. These traditional methods that were used to prevent
femicide include things like preventing the free mixing of sexes,
preventing women to work outside their homes, marrying girls at an
early age and encouraging polygamy.