She is a beautiful and vividly articulate 18-year-old who lives somewhere in Toronto. She ran away from home three years ago because she was afraid of her abusive father, who used to hit her and her sisters repeatedly. “I knew it was hard for my dad to change,” she says. He is used to the way things work in Pakistan, where they lived till she was 10. She has a close friend who also fears her father. He has beaten her viciously, and has threatened many times to kill her.
Two and a half years ago, another Toronto-area teenager named Aqsa Parvez was strangled after her father allegedly threatened to kill her for ignoring his wishes. Her father and brother have been charged with her murder. When the second girl discussed this tragedy with her father, he told her, “You kind of girls and girls like her deserve whatever happened to her. ”
The story of two friends is featured in a riveting new documentary called In the Name of the Family, which premiered this week at Hot Docs in Toronto. Its director, Shelley Saywell, is a gifted filmmaker whose work has been acclaimed around the world. Her specialty is venturing into places where others fear to tread – and she found this particular place right here in Canada, in high-rise apartment buildings and suburban homes. It is a world where the abuse of teenage girls is all too common, sometimes even fatal.
“This is a lot more prevalent in North America than I had thought,” says Ms. Saywell, who, through her other work, is on familiar terms with the shame-and-honour culture that is often brutal to women.
Intense conflict between conservative immigrant fathers and their modern daughters is nothing new. But this kind of violence – often premeditated, and condoned by the community – is driven by a cultural belief that fathers ought to be able to control their daughters. Daughters who act immorally – by talking to boys, or going to the mall, or wearing immodest clothes – bring shame and humiliation onto their entire families. Whatever punishment they suffer is widely thought to be their fault.
“This is the dirty laundry of the community,” says Ms. Saywell, who worked closely with female researchers from Canada’s Pakistani and Afghan communities to make this film.
In the film, we see the first girl urging her friend to leave home for good. “Your dad is scary,” she says. “One day, something really bad is going to happen, and he won’t stop. What if he tries killing you, what are you going to do then? You can’t leave your house, right?”
“No,” the second girl says.
“So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
A few days later, the second girl picks up a cellphone message from her dad. “ ‘The way you are acting, God will never forgive you,’ ” she translates. “ ‘You are going to die in fire …’ ” She breaks off. “I can’t listen to this.”
After Aqsa Parvez was killed, Facebook was full of comments from girls who wrote, “That’s my story. That could be me.” The second girl also identifies with Aqsa. Her father once woke her up in the middle of the night and asked her – “but it was nicely – he asked me, ‘You don’t want to wear the hijab?’ and I said no. And he asked me why and I told him that I don’t feel ready. And then he asked me again, and I said no. Then he asked me a third time and I said no again, and then he just took a pillow and put it over my face … and he started suffocating me. I was holding my breath and I couldn’t scream, and I was trying to scream. And everyone was sleeping. And then my sister finally came in the room and started crying and then my dad stopped. I went back to my room and I remember I did try telling my mom but he kept denying it and my mom believed him. And even today if I bring it up he denies it.”
