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Loophole halts justice for honor killing victims in Jordan

Jordan has seen a surge in "honor" killings of women, with nine recorded this year already.

A woman who was abused by her husband covers her face, so as not to be identified by her family, at the Sisterhood Is Global Institute office in Amman March 5, 2009, ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.    REUTERS/Ali Jarekji (JORDAN) - RTXCDU6
A woman who was abused by her husband covers her face, so as not to be identified by her family, in Amman, March 5, 2009. — REUTERS/Ali Jarekji

AMMAN, Jordan — Batool Haddad, a Christian girl from the northern Jordanian village of Khirbet Wahadneh, kept relatively quiet about her interest in Islam, mentioning it probably only to her sister, who also kept it to herself.

But when Haddad converted to Islam after attending a lecture by a Saudi preacher, according to local reports, she told her sister, who this time told their father, who told his brother. On April 30, the two men took Haddad to a local forest.

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