I am not sure why people continue to refer to these murders as 'honor' killings. All of these killings were the result of very dysfuntional families and involved people who a) did not know how to control situations from the start b) reacted in violence because that is the only way they could deal with the situations.
Cases like these are the result of violence. Some individuals have no idea how else to deal with life, except with such violence.
And with the young girl, it was not about braids. She ran away from home various times, and was having issues at school as well. But her family , they had major problems from probably when she was born. Sometimes people think it's easy to say that females give a reason (somebody said), knowing full well what their families will expect - but kids dont rebel to such an extent unless there are problems in parenting to begin with.
Issues like this have much deeper roots. It's not about hairstyles. It's about a lack of proper parenting skills, communication, being able to adapt to new cultural settings, being able to raise kids according to ones one morals/beliefs and being able to deal effectively when they are having problems with those beliefs...being able to deal with problems effectively...so much more. Resorting to murder is just abnormal.