Queen Noor Backs women against violence campaign
20 January 99 By Adel Darwish in Amman 
 
Queen Noor of Jordan has given her full backing to a women movement campaign to combat the traditional phenomenon of '' defending honour by killings'', according to a report in the Amman newspaper Jordan Times. Jordanian and Arab women organisations have praised Queen Noor for tackling a taboo subject. For generations Arab women's movement has been lacking institutional backing from the media, trade unions and political parties to confront the phenomenon. The murders of women in the Arab world for alleged sexual impropriety claim hundreds of lives every year.
  There are between 25 to 30 such killing reported annually in Jordan alone, country of only 4.6 million people; women organisations suspects that the figure could be higher as families try to cover up attributing the death to some accident. Even the officially reported figures represent represents a quarter of all murders in the country.
In most cases the killing is carried out by male relations, encouraged by lax laws that can enable them to escape with little or no penalty. Women are killed because of their involvement - or simply suspected involvement - in affairs, in most cases outside the tribe.
Most politicians and political parties in the past have steered away from the issue in fear of offending tribal and traditional sensibilities, but with Queen Noor giving he backing to the move eradicate the phenomenon, women say their campaign has been given a tremendous boost.
  The Queen joined the campaign, spearheaded by Rana Husseini, an Arab woman crime reporter who for the past five years has been exposing honour killings in the daily Jordan Times. 
American born Queen Noor - whose Arabic name means 'Light'- told CNN that this type of violence against women is not consistent with Islam or with the Jordanian Constitution. " I have very strong personal feelings as a Muslim, as a woman, as a wife and as a mother about this form of violence," the queen said 
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