This would ease the burden of almost 2 million American families that care for aging or ailing loved ones at home. I recently joined House members and human rights and women's advocacy organizations to condemn the practices of honor killings and dowry deaths and to announce a joint strategy to curb the practices. As part of this strategy, I introduced a resolution expressing the sense of the Senate on United States efforts to encourage the governments of foreign countries to investigate and prosecute crimes committed in those countries in the name of family honor and to provide relief for victims of those crimes. Dowry deaths and tortures, most common in India , stem from the custom of requiring a woman's family to give a dowry at marriage. Many husbands torture their wives in an effort to extort money from the wife's family or they simply kill them in order to remarry for another dowry.
Honor killings occur most commonly in Bangladesh , Pakistan , Saudi Arabia and Turkey .
Husbands kill their wives if the husband believes the wife has shamed him or his family by seeking a divorce or committing adultery. The stories of women who have been subject to unspeakable acts of violence women who are tortured, locked in rooms and starved to death, dowsed in kerosene and burned alive are as tragic as they are unbelievable. Although statistics on honor killings are not systematically kept, the State Department has estimated that there will be up to 200 honor killings in Bangladesh alone this year. According to the United Nations Children Fund , more than 5,000 dowry deaths occur every year in India. The perpetuation of honor killings and dowry deaths is a deliberate violation of women's rights that should be universally condemned.