Saada was a 19-year-old student at the Institute for the Preparation of Teachers in al-Shatea and she was looking forward to one day working as a teacher. Unfortunately, Saada’s uncles had different plans for her future. They arranged for her to be married, in line with prevailing norms and traditions in their village in Wadi al-Shatea, about 60 kilometers north of Sabha in southwestern Libya.
Saada was a 19-year-old student at the Institute for the Preparation of Teachers in al-Shatea and she was looking forward to one day working as a teacher. Unfortunately, Saada’s uncles had different plans for her future. They arranged for her to be married, in line with prevailing norms and traditions in their village in Wadi al-Shatea, about 60 kilometers north of Sabha in southwestern Libya.
Saada tried to reject the marriage arrangement, pleading to instead finish her studies, but her uncles insisted. Saada’s mother, Mabrouka, said she was in no position to advocate for her daughter. In the end, Saada married her cousin and was forced to move with him to Abi al-Qasem in Sabha City.
According to Mabrouka, her son-in-law was strict and harsh with Saada—beating and verbally abusing her every day. Saada sought the help of her uncles but in vain.
Correspondents has tried to communicate with Saada’s uncles but they refused to comment.
Saada tried to escape from her husband’s house on several occasions and sought refuge at the home of other relatives. Unfortunately, the relatives always brought Saada back to her husband, fearing that keeping her would only bring on more problems.
“Escaping from the house of her husband was not the right thing to do because Libyan society, especially in the south, does not accept such behavior, regardless of the reasons,” Mabrouka, her mother said.
Nevertheless, Saada continued to run away from her husband and made it as far away as Benghazi in September 2014. Her uncles were livid. When they found her and brought her back, they decided that killing Saada was the only remaining solution to her repeated escape attempts.
They all agreed that her eldest uncle should carry out the killing and, most important, that Saada should be killed in the presence of her husband.
The final hour
Saada was locked up in a room in her husband’s house and Mabrouka tied to sneak in food but Saada refused to eat. Through tears, Mabrouka recalled the final moments of her daughter’s life:
Abu Bakr, the eldest uncle, came in carrying a gun. When I saw him heading to Saada’s room I was so horrified I was unable to think. I tried to stop him and Ibegged him to beat her or do anything else he wanted but not to kill her. But his brothers surrounded me and they pulled me away. They naively asked me to be patient and to endure.
I still hear her screaming when her uncle went in her room with the gun. She was calling me to come and help her and she was begging her uncle not to kill her. She promised him that she would never run away from the house again. I was trying to find a way to go to her room and to rescue her but suddenly I heard the sound of three shots. Then the voice of my daughter disappeared. With all my might, I pushed her uncles away from me and I went to the room to see my daughter soaked in her own blood.
Her uncles did not allow me to prepare a funeral for Saada and they even didn’t allow me to receive condolences in my house. I went to my brothers to help me and to stand by my side, but they refused to interfere in an issue that touches the honor of another family! I went to the police to submit a complaint. Notes were taken but none of the accused were summoned by the police.
Saada’s file was kept in the drawers at the police center with tens of other similar files collecting dust.
A silent phenomenon
Honour crimes in Sabha are common and occur in the absence of a judicial system. Ahmad Shawayel, the head of the investigations at the police station in al-Qardah in Sabha, told Correspondents: “Honour crimes became more frequent after the deterioration in the security situation witnessed recently in the south.”
While there are no accurate current figures about honour killings in Sabha, according to Shawayel, there were 23 honour crime cases reported in 2011 and 54 in 2012 and that figure dropped to 39 cases in 2013 and 2014. Shawayel explained that the figures are inaccurate because people tend not to testify in honour cases and most of these cases are usually solved by the police officer on duty in a “social” manner between involved parties. Officers in charge often write in police records that the killings were done by accident or some other reason to remove guilt from the perpetrator.
“The law allows women on honour suspicions to complain against their assailants, but in the absence of awareness about women’s rights, or a judiciary or security in the south, people do not take the laws seriously,” Shawayel said.
Weak laws
According to Najeh Abdallah, a lawyer and a legal consultant at the Sabha Court of First Instance: “The Libyan law criminalizes honour killings, but there are some legal loopholes used by some to commit these crimes and go unpunished, such as the reduced punishment for the husband who kills his wife if he finds her committing a dishonourable act. The law also excuses the uncles and the fathers and allows them to receive reduced sentences for killing their wives or female family members under the pretext of honour.”
Abdallah added that the public opinion accepts this kind of killing when it relates to honour. “In an isolated city, such ideas find their support and backing in the cultural heritage of the society even if they do not comply with the teachings of Islam,” he said.
Fear in an isolated society
Samira al-Jadawi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Social Affairs in the southern region said the isolated nature of the society prevents many abused women whose daughters or sisters were victims of honour killings from reporting such incidents to the social affairs commission.
“The only thing being done by the commission now is the preparation of a psychological support program for these women. This is the best that we can do at the moment,” she said.
Al-Jadawi agreed with Shawayel about the absence of accurate figures on these crimes, and added that the state of lawlessness as well as conservatism in Libyan society, keeps these cases hidden forever.
Society also stigmatizes the survivors of honour crime victims. Mabrouka said her community rejected her and her two other daughters, and have cut off relations with them since the incident.
Deathly silence
In Sabha alone, there are more than 180 civil society organizations however, none of them is tackling the issue of honour killings.
Fadia Muayqel, a member of the Women’s Federation in the south said most of those who work in civil society organizations do not have the needed awareness to deal with the cause of battered women and those who are victims of honour crimes.
“As a woman’s federation working particularly on the issues of women in the south, we have many reservations about a number of articles in the Libyan law on these crimes.” She also blamed the preachers of mosques for not performing the roles expected of them in spreading awareness among the people.
Mabrouka continues to knock on the doors of lawyers, police centers and human rights organizations’ to save the reputation and memory of her daughter, even though in doing so, her own life has been threatened.
