The New York Times has a good article about the horrible “honor killing” of a 14-year old girl by her father, because she had a boyfriend she wanted to marry. (In Iran, 13 year old girls can marry with their parents’ permission.)
Buried in the middle of the article, though, is an astonishing statistic:
Honor killings are thought to be rare but that may be because they are usually hushed up.
A 2019 report by a research center affiliated with Iran’s armed forces found that nearly 30 percent of all murder cases in Iran were honor killings of women and girls. The number is unknown, however, as Iran does not publicly release crime statistics.
According to the statistics I see online, the intentional murder rate in Iran is roughly 2.5 per hundred thousand. That would come out to an incredible 600 women murdered for “honor” every year in Iran – nearly 2 every day of the year.
That is almost too many to believe. The NYT doesn’t link to the study. But if it is true, then Iran may be the honor killing capital of the world.
(UPDATE: My original math was wrong, h/t DM)