No. 27: Honour based abuse

What is honour based abuse?

There is currently no statutory definition of honour based abuse:

Honour based abuse is where a person is punished by their family/community for allegedly undermining what they believe to be the correct code of behaviour. Can be distinguished from other forms of abuse, as it is often committed with some degree of approval and/or collusion from family and/or community members.

Honour based abuse can include honour killing, FGM, domestic abuse and forced marriage but this is not an exhaustive list.

Although predominately associated with women and girls, male members of a family can also be victims.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council’s definition of Honour based Abuse is:

‘an incident or crime involving violence, threats of violence, intimidation, coercion or abuse (including psychological, physical, sexual, financial or emotional abuse), which has or may have been committed to protect or defend the honour of an individual, family or community for alleged or perceived breaches of the family and/or community’s codes of behaviour’.

Restoring honour or ‘izzat’ is viewed as being more important than anything else.

What is Dowry?

Dowry is the tradition of providing gifts, money, goods or parental property from the bride’s family to the groom or in-laws before, during or any time after the marriage.

Dowry is practiced amongst many communities including South Asian, Christian and Buddhist. The British Asian wedding industry is worth £3billion a year and the average Asian wedding costs £50-£250k compared with the average British wedding costing £21k. Such investment in Asian weddings reflects the importance of dowry and the investments made by families.

What is the difference between an honour killing and domestic homicide?

Honour killing

• Carefully planned.   Premeditated. Rarely spontaneous.
• Plans involve multiple family members/extended community. Organised Crime.
• ‘Dishonoured’ family and brought ‘shame’ upon it
• Barbaric ferocity –raped, stoned, acid attacks, decapitated
• Killing is condoned by the community and many supporters of the actions. Even if people are not vocal, through their silence they are encouraging it as no one is saying it is wrong.
• No remorse – try to restore lost honour.

Domestic homicide

• Often unplanned and spontaneous.
• Dealt with there and then.
• One person with no family complicity.
• Jealousy/financial hardship/alcohol/drugs/MH.
• Stabbed/beaten/strangulation.
• DA is stigmatised in the wider community. Seen as criminal and a bad thing.

Those potentially at risk of HBA

• Young people may be vulnerable to HBA if they:
• have a relationship with someone outside their community or someone within their community that their family don’t approve of
• talk to certain people
• have sex before marriage
• a victim of rape
• showing intimacy in public
• become pregnant or give birth outside of marriage
• wear clothes their family or community think are inappropriate
• use drugs or alcohol
• access higher education
• challenge what their family or community expect of them
• disagree with the religion of their family or community

For some young people they may be subject to so-called ‘honour’ based violence for reasons that seem improbable or relatively minor to others

Honour based violence

• Before accessing support, victims of Honour based violence (HBV) experienced abuse for 2 years longer (5 years v 3 years) than those not identified as at risk of HBV
• 68%of victims at risk of HBV were at high risk of serious harm or homicide, compared to 55% of those not identified as at risk of HBV.
• Victims at risk of HBV are seven times more likely to be experiencing abuse from multiple perpetrators (54%v7%) compared to those not identified as at risk of HBV.

What to look out for

A young person experiencing HBA may:
• act withdrawn or upset
• have bruising or other unexplained physical injury
• exhibit depression, self-harming or attempted suicide
• have unexplained absence or poor performance at school or work
• have their movements at home strictly controlled
• talk of family rows, domestic violence
• running away from home
• have a family history of relatives going missing

Once chance rule

All practitioners working with victims of so-called ‘honour’ based abuse need to be aware of the ‘one chance rule’.  That is, they may only have one chance to speak to a potential victim and thus they may only have one chance to save a life.

Remember to:

• Accurately record your concerns
• Share with your DSL immediately
• Use the young persons (or adults if concern is for a parent/carer) in any record keeping
• Document any injuries – use body maps
• Use only (if required) professional interpreters. Do not use relatives, friends etc.

If you are unsure if your concerns are HBA related make a MASH consultation and/or speak to the police.

Typical victim profile: Shafilea Ahmed 14.7.86 – 11.9.03

• Murdered by her parents in her hometown of Warrington in 2003 – her parents concealed the body in Cumbria
• Her parents objected to her socialising, having ’western’ friends and having contact with boys
• Shafilea describes in poetry how she felt locked between two cultures
• She was taken abroad to be married and attempted suicide to avoid marriage
• She returned home but was later reported missing by her school
• She was murdered in front of her siblings and her parents made the siblings keep the murder a secret
• Her sister finally told the police seven years later

Shafilea is a typical case – she ran away from home and went to many different agencies for help including the police, health, education and children’s services, none of which provided the help she needed.

Further information

Karma Nirvana: 0800 5999 247

Karma Nirvana: website

‘Honour crimes and forced marriage’:

Devon and Cornwall Police: Honour based abuse

Victim support: Honour based abuse

SafeLives: Honour based violence and forced marriage