WASHINGTON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The last words from Sarah were “Oh my God, I’m dying.” Then the 911 emergency operator heard a barrage of gunshots. Sarah, 17, and her sister Amina, 18, were found shot 11 times in the back of their father’s taxi, abandoned in a hotel parking lot.

Their father Yaser Said has not been found since that New Year’s Day seven years ago when he told his daughters to climb into his cab, he was taking them out to dinner.

The chilling emergency call opens the documentary "The Price of Honor", which recounts the lives of two vivacious American teenagers growing up in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas, and their attempts to escape the grip of an Egyptian father who planned Muslim marriages.

Their deaths were honor killings, said Ruth Trotter, using a phrase little heard in the United States for a hidden horror of murder by a close relative to protect the family name, but rarely recognized by public safety officials.

Amina was secretly dating Trotter's son, Joseph, and Sarah had a boyfriend too, facts they tried to hide from their father,

"Amina always knew that Yaser was going to murder her, it was just a question of when and where. She made Joseph promise that he would not harm himself, that when she dies he would live," Trotter said in an interview.

He beat the girls and took them to Egypt to find husbands when Amina was 15 and picked one man who was almost 50. She begged and pleaded with her mother to come back home, she said.

Honor violence is a crime without a name in the United States. No data is collected on its prevalence, many people think it happens in countries far, far away from the United States, experts on gender-based violence said.

Its forms range from domestic violence for defying parental authority or behaving "too Westernized," to extreme sexual control including female genital mutilation (FGM), forced marriage and ultimately killings to protect the family's reputation in a conservative community.

A recent study by the U.S. Justice Department quoted research that estimates between 23 and 27 honor killings occur each year in the United States and there are 1,500 forced marriages. But there are no official statistics.

A separate study by the Population Reference Bureau estimates that 507,000 women and girls in the United States are at risk or have already undergone FGM, where her genitalia are partially or totally removed to control sexuality and ensure virginity until marriage, more than twice the number estimated 15 years.

"When you consider that we have many, many immigrant communities in the United States who did not leave their culture behind, the scale is huge," said Amy Logan, co-president of the U.S. National Committee for UN Women in San Francisco who was a consultant for the documentary.

European countries are much further ahead in training police and social workers to identify those at risk of honor violence and teaching how its contours differ from domestic abuse, and how to intervene safely before it escalates toward death.

Amina and Sarah had nowhere to turn in Texas. No one understood that a teenager saying "My Dad is going to kill me" is a serious cry for help, not adolescent drama, said Trotter.

James McLelland, Irving Police Department spokesman, said police do not view the case through a cultural lens, and investigated it no differently than any other homicide.

"We are not giving any credence to honor, but approach it as capital murder. Whatever the motivation was, is for him to explain. The end result is the same," McLelland said.

FBI's 10 Most Wanted

When Xoel Pamos began researching the documentary, which premiered in September and had its first showing in Washington last week, he set out to tell stories from women around the world. But the tragedy of Amina and Sarah captivated him.

Authorities had ignored signs of family turmoil, he said. The maternal grandmother recounts in the documentary how she alerted the police when the girls confided that their father was sexually touching them. But she said Amina and Sarah recanted, urged on by their American mother to keep daddy out of jail.

After their deaths, police did not interview all family members and potential leads turned cold, Pamos and Trotter said.

Pamos and his co-director, Iranian-born Neena Nejad, hired a team of private investigators. They uncovered a video showing the father spying on his daughter as she worked in a convenience store and his anger when she smiled at a customer.

They uncovered cellphone records that showed Yaser Said making multiple calls to family members immediately before and after his daughters' deaths. Then he disappeared.

Irving police said they followed up on every credible lead.

Almost seven years later, after the movie premiered, the FBI placed Yaser Abdel Said, 58, on its Ten Most Wanted list. He remains at large.

Pamos said Amina and Sarah's story is a horrific tale about what happens when honor violence is ignored.

"We need to be aware this a real issue in the U.S.," he said.

"We need more men, more Muslim men to fight, to sign up and protest that you cannot move to the United States and marry a white lady and say to your daughters you cannot date an American guy. You cannot come and violate basic human rights."

http://news.yahoo.com/two-girls-murdered-texas-taxi-were-honor-killings-212713046.html

Thanks mm.
I'm a victim of my own confirmation bias here. I'm inclined to agree with you.

BUT !!

I addressed this issue several years ago with a poster from India.
He made a persuasive case (despite sleeveless burkas) that in Islam women are respected; and cited as examples numerous women that had been heads of State, including Indira Gandhi.

BUT !!

If Islam is so respectful of women, why must they be chaperoned in public?
Why are they forbidden to drive cars?
etc.

I think you're right, and "honor killings", a euphemism for murder Orwell would be impressed by, may be as good an example as any.

Thanks for the topic mm.

Many tenants of Islam are incompatible with Western culture.

Splendid.
But that doesn't refute the posted topic title.

In the United States (in some ways representative of Western culture) women are known to be paid less for the same job than men.
In Western culture women are expected to have pre-pubescent hairless bodies, to look pretty, and act charming.
But for men belching and farting are distinctions of a "manly man".

"Western culture" isn't the issue, because "Western culture" is not the objective standard of gender equality.

That "Western culture" is unfair to women too doesn't render the unfairness to women in Islam any less troublesome.

Thanks mm.

There's subjectivity, and there's objectivity.

The U.S. tradition is not an objective standard for gender equality.

We have gender segregation in the U.S. (thank gosh!).

Public toilets are segregated, Women's and Men's.

I support the principle of equality under law.
But I do not advocate for unisex public toilets.

this is about how muslims treat women, not how women here think they are treated...

mm
Precisely.

BUT !!

a) I've never seen a one sided coin.

b) Context matters.

What sense does it make to talk bad about Islam's sexism, if U.S. sexism is as bad or worse.

There are nations in that region that have had female political leaders.

The U.S. has had only men.

You think that's irrelevant?

yes, like i said, it's about how muslims treat women... start your own post if your thinking women here have it bad...

if women here think they have it bad, let them spend a year in Saudi Arabia and find out what bad really is...

http://worldnews.about.com/od/saudiarabia/qt/Womens-Rights-In-Saudi-Arabia.htm

Compared to what?

BTW...your own 'LINK' draws a connection to our Western philosophy and the establish social order of their home land; you missed reading this or didn't understand >>>

I didnt know chaperoning was something disrespectful

I always kind of felt like my parents had someone drive me and chaperone me because of concern for my SAFETY,, and not because of disrespect,,,,,,,,

Edited for targeting other member's opinions.

soufie
Site Moderator

"Honour killing", is a hokey, politically correct term for murder.

The murderers should be treated as, murderers... And not, given special consideration, simply because they moved here from a different land.

Seven years, for the F.B.I., to put the idiot on the most wanted list? Really?

Hell... Said is probably obonzo's personal chauffeur now.

i guess you didn't read the link i posted...it's not about going to the prom... grown women can't leave the house without a male escort, and they have to be at least 10 feet behind the male... otherwise they get stoned, (with rocks, not weed)99 lashes, or some jail time...

like i told him, feel free to start your own post on how bad western women have it...

it is obarrys fault...

MightyMoses posted >>>
it is obarrys fault...

Ahhhhh, now I understand {I'm learning}; it's never a thread if you throw around 'OBAMA's name!

GOT IT!~~~

agreed. they should not come here if they cannot leave that culture behind. period.

i agree, but the liberals teach us we should assimilate to them, not the other way around...