Last night at a quarter to ten it was exactly 12 years since the young woman Fadime Sahindal was murdered by her father Rahmi. Why was she murdered and what had happened? Fadime Sahindal was a Kurdish young woman who was born in Kahranmanmaras, Turkey on April 2d 1975. When she was seven years old her family fled to Sweden. As she grew up and became a teenager she noticed that her male relatives began to controll her more and more, and even more when she became 18 and older. At the age of 18 a person in Sweden becomes grown up and officially mature and is allowed to make one’s own choices. You’re allowed to drive, vote in official elections, to chose what to work with, line of education, travel anywhere. You’re also allowed to chose whom you want to love, live with, get married if and when you want to. That was just the problem. Fadime’s closest family and other relatives didn’t allow her that right. They were annoyed that she had become too Swedish and too Western-oriented. Fadime rebelled and went public at the turn of the new millennium. She spoke up for her rights and her situation in newspapers and TV-shows. Her father and brother beat her up, which she reported to the police. When she began studying to become a social worker she fell in love with a Swedish man called Patrik. They began seeing each other, but she kept her relationship with Patrik secret. Eventually her family found out about it. On the day Fadime and Patrik were supposed to move in together Patrik died mysteriously in a car accident. Fadime was heart broken, and made contacts with leading politicians and organizations who pinpointed honour-related violence.
In November 2001 Fadime Sahindal had been invited to Riksdagen/The Swedish Parliament to present the problems with living within a group where the women are guarded and kept as prisoners from making their own free life choices. She held a long and moving speech. It ended like this: “I have chosen to tell you my story today with the hope that it will aid other immigrant girls so that they don’t have to suffer in the same way as I have. If everyone contributes this does not has to happen again. Independent of what cultural background you have it ought to be evident for every young woman to both have your family and the life you want for yourself. But sadly this is not evident for many girls. And I hope that you won’t turn your back on them, that you won’t turn a blind eye to them. Thank you for listening”. This public speech in Parliament would become famous, but for her also fatal. She was studying in Östersund at the time and was going to Kenya for six months to conclude her education as a social worker. On January 21st 2002 she took the train to Uppsala to say goodbye to her mother and younger sisters. She arrrived in the flat of her sister Songul in the afternoon. She spent the evening with her mother and most sisters and expected the youngest to come home from her training. Then her father and brother appeared outside the flat. When Fadime and the others thought they had gone she tried to leave. Her father waited outside and shot her with one bullet in the forehead and one in the cheek. Fadime died on the spot. She was 26 years old. In the police interrogations Rahmi explained that Fadime had dishonoured her family and relatives by telling the entire world and let them know how some Kurdish women are treated. Fadime’s father was sentenced to prison. Fadime Sahindal has become a symbol for this kind of collective so called “honour”-related violence. She lies buried on Uppsala old cemetary. Ten years after the murder a monument in her honour was raised on the cemetary too.
One person who Fadime had contacted a few months before her death was Sara Mohammad, another Kurdish woman who had her own personal experiences of this kind of maffia-similar “honour” codex and life style. Sara Mohammad had herself been threatened by her brother when she was a teenager. He had put a kalashnikov to her head when she refused to marry a chosen man. She ran away when she was 17 years old and ended up in Sweden too. Sara Mohammad had in 2001 started an organisation against honour-related violence commemorating another Swedish victim, a girl named Pela Atroshi who at the age of 19 had been lured to Dahouk, Iraq and there shot dead by her father and uncles on June 24th 1999. Originally Sara Mohammad’s organization was called “Glöm aldrig Pela”/Never forget Pela, but after the murder of Fadime Sahindal in 2002 a new name was added; “Glöm Aldrig Pela och Fadime”, GAPF. For years Sara Mohammad has relentlessly worked hard day and night to prevent and stop honour-related violence, saving lifes, inform and educate. After the death of Fadime 12 years ago the Swedish society has become much more aware. Politicians, social workers, nurses, doctors, school staff, police, lawyers, volunteers all have gone courses and learned about it. Several non-profit organizations also work with it in a true way. Alongside GAPF, http://www.gapf.se I would especially mention ALMAeuropa, http://www.ALMAeuropa.org, VHEK, Varken Hora Eller Kuvad/Neither Whore Nor Subjugated, Tänk om!/Reconsider and others. 2006-2013 we also had a Minister in the present government who pinpointed these issues. Nyamko Sabuni was Minister of Integration and Gender Equality. She was one year ago replaced though by Maria Arnholm as Minister for Gender Equality, and before that by Erik Ullenhag as Minister of Integration. You see Sara Mohammad on a TV screen in one of the photos above.
The memory of Fadime is commemorated every year since her death on January 21st 2002 and this year three days have pinpointed her memory on several places in Sweden. I was yesterday at the town hall here in Malmoe at a seminar with a panel debate. The seminar was arranged by Humanisterna Syd, http://www.humanisterna.se, http://www.humsyd.blogspot.com in co-operation with Glöm Aldrig Pela och Fadime, http://www.gapf.se, kontakt@gapf.se. Magnus Timmerby from Humanisterna Syd was conferencier and discussion leader. It all began with the troubadour Lennart “Lennie” Ekdahl who sang a couple of songs, among them En sång till modet/A song to bravery. After that a film was shown simply titled “Heder”/Honour”. The film makers and some of the actors were present yesterday, young actors from Landskrona with different immigrant background. The film was fiction but based on different true stories. It was about a teenage girl who is seen talking to a male friend whom she wants to take a few dance steps. Another guy intervenes, a friend of her brother, and she is forbidden to talk to her male class mate. This is blown-up into horrendous proportions, and the girl’s life becomes more and more guarded. Her father defends her, and her brother wants to stand on his sister’s side, but he also guards her and is told by his male friends and other relatives to become tough and a real man. The girl’s father is seen as weak by his sister who has moved in instead of the dead mother. The aunt is hard on the girl and contributes to maintaining the honour codex and hard surveillance. The school psychologist is involved and tries to speak with all parties, but things get worse and worse. Relatives nearby and abroad continue spreading rumours, calling her names and egging the foul development on. I think you might guess the outcome of the story.
After the film there was a panel debate about the subject of honour-related violence. The panel consisted of Hillevi Larsson, Member of Parliament for the Social Democrats, but from Malmoe, Mariam Taheri from GAPF region south, Anja Sonesson, member of the party board for the Conservative Moderate Party, Ezzedine Zein, film maker and producer of the film “Heder”, and Jenny Wanhammar, activist from FEMEN Sweden. Magnus Timmerby led the discussions. All in the panel maintained that they had been moved by the film, and all had some form of knowledge on the matter, seen the honour-related oppression, come in contact with it in one way or the other. The two politicians, both the Social Democrat and the Conservative agreed on these matters and tried to do what they could. Hillevi Larsson told us that there now exists a policy handbook in Malmoe for how to deal with such errands, money for women’s shelters, further education and co-operation with social authorities and non-profit organizations on a local basis. Anja Sonesson, Conservative told us about a survey and mapping out of the situation which is made to see how serious the situation is and what must be done further. In recent years we have had at least four cases in Malmoe of so called “balcony girls”, women who just happens to fall from balconies, but most likely are honour-killings. This is just a few of many mysterious deaths and devious killings, alongside the threats and surveillance on a daily basis. This kind of lifestyle is deeply xenophobic, maffia-like and built on enclavization. Keep to the own group, the own religion, your own original countrymen. A kind of clan in, but separate from the rest of the society. Stray but a little outside it, fall in love with someone outside the group, make your own choices then you are in deep trouble. Ezzedine Zein said that when they prepared the movie-making young girls from different parts of Sweden had come to them not so much for the audition but to tell their own stories, about their own experiences. Jenny from FEMEN has been mocked on social media, as late as two days ago on Twitter and Facebook for her commitment against honour-related violence and oppression of women. She has been called islamophobic, racist, whore and no true feminist by other feminists. Jenny also said that what lately has been called culture relativism when it comes to the approach towards honour-related violence rather would be called conservative moral relativism. No doubt this is a subject which provokes feelings in many quarters. Anja Sonesson also said that she sees it as unprofessional to now let certain children in school skip classes in sexual education, or not go to gym class, or have separate swimming classes for Muslim women, since that risks keeping the separatism alive and the patriarch honour codex too.
Exactly one week ago, on Wednesday January 15th, there was a demonstration in Stockholm against the leniency towards rapists. Sara Mohammad and GAPF was supposed to be one of the co-arrangers of the event, but a group of Internet activists began accusing her of being Anti-Islam and islamophobic, and worked hard to block her from the event. They succeeded and Sara Mohammad and GAPF was suddenly not allowed to participate. The same group also wanted to boycot the Fadime days. For them it was not okay that white middle class people should honour Fadime, and Parliament was not a good forum to honour her memory either according to them. So yesterday on January 21st Feministiskt Perspektiv and Terrafem arranged an alternative Fadime-day in Stockholm. What was the agenda? Not much about honour-related violence, but instead focus on the two-year-regulation. That regulation is shameful too, but has very little or nothing to do with what Fadime was fighting for. The two-year-regulation is a regulation which allows someone to let a woman come to Sweden, marry her and keep her here for two years to see if the marriage works out. Certain men, both ordinary Swedes and immigrant men have abused this regulation to import some woman, marry her, keep her as house- and sex slave, keep her in secret from real human rights in Sweden, then divorce her and after two years get a new one. This is another bad regulation which must be changed, but what had it to do with Fadime and others like her? – Nothing.
The liberal-conservative government has now come with a new proposed law which most likely will be passed before the summer. It will become illegal to get married before the age of 18, but also to force or put pressure on someone young to get married, and even prepare something similar. That will give you four years in prison. Also if you take someone out of Sweden and have a marriage abroad will be criminilized, which will send a signal to priests and imams, families and others what the Swedish system allows. Beatrice Ask, Minister of Justice gladly presented this last Sunday in Parliament during the first Fadime-day this year. Nyamko Sabuni, the former Minister of Integration and Gender Equality will become Head of a foundation for gathering money to GAPF. Our EU-Minister Birgitta Ohlsson also had a speech in Parliament in honour of Fadime Sahindal and all others who fall victim for this kind of collective oppression and abuse. We have had a similar mentality in Sweden before, but during the process of democratization and work for gender equality many things have improved. That’s why this is so important. The honour-related oppression and honour-related murders are unacceptable. Those who keep it alive are both victims and culprits, while those who oppose that foul system, sometimes under threats and with life at stake are the real heroes.
Anders Moberg, January 22d 2014
swedish heart and soul 
Essential and sad.