2010 saw the issue of honor killing attract the condemnation and awareness it deserves, and while the legislators may not be enacting change, online activists are striving to keep the issue on the agenda.

Certainly, there cannot be enough ‘hurrah’s in the world to bestow upon these campaigners, foremost amongst whom is Kinzi, who diligently galvanizes the blogosphere on the shameful issue.

Yet there is another aspect of honor that is passing sans comment, or at best scrapes a few lines in the mainstream media.

The by-product of those two greater stains on humanity – the abuse of migrant workers and the deathly interpretation of honor – the slaughter and/or abandonment of newborns by mothers fleeing the Emirates is occurring with an increasing frequency.

The most recent case emerged today:

Police in United Arab Emirates are searching for a woman they believe delivered a baby and then strangled it in an airport toilet before catching a flight out of the country.

Local media reported Monday that authorities are seeking help from Interpol to locate the suspect, who was identified using security camera footage after the baby’s body was discovered in a Dubai airport garbage can Thursday.

The Abu Dhabi government-owned daily The National cited an unnamed security source saying authorities are searching for an Ethiopian woman in her 30s. Other media said only that she is from an African country.

It’s unclear if the woman was a resident in the Emirates, where giving birth outside of marriage is illegal. [Source]

It would be easy to gasp at the mother’s inhumanity, but it runs deeper: for a mother to flee and leave her child or even kill it denotes a greater, external malevolence.

For this we must look to society – the maltreatment of migrant workers in the Gulf is plumbing a new nadir: could this be but a consequence?

For 2011 let us keep count of such cases, as much for the cause of women’s rights as those of humanity and the child.