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CULTURES: Control

 

Honour violence

So-called "honour"-based violence occurs in communities where the concepts of honour and shame are fundamentally bound up with the expected behaviour of families and individuals, particularly that of women. In some cases this has led to "honour killings" and the United Nations Population Fund estimates that the annual worldwide total of killings might be as high as 5,000 women. In other circumstances, the victim can be subjected to long-term low level physical abuse and bullying as 'punishment' for 'bringing dishonour on the family'.

The Home Affairs Select Committee Report on Domestic Violence, "Honour"-based Violence and Forced Marriage lists a number of perceptions of common ways in which honour can be damaged including the following:

  • Defying parental authority: In many cultures, elder members of the family are expected to control their children. Parents who publicly fail to do so may lose status in the community as a result.
  • Becoming 'western' (clothes, behaviour, attitude): People from honour-based cultures often transform ideas of honour into a pride in one's origins and/or religion once they settle in 'the West'. Families who allow their children to assimilate into wider society can be seen as betraying their origins, their community and their ancestors.
  • Women having sex/relationships before marriage: Many honour-based cultures put a high premium on a girl's virginity and sexual fidelity. Families whose women are believed to have extramarital relationships (even of a non-sexual kind) can suffer a decline in honour and social standing.
  • Use of drugs or alcohol: Drinking alcohol and using drugs not endorsed by religion, culture or tradition can bring shame on families because their children are seen as abandoning or rejecting the values of their parents and their community.
  • Gossip: In many cases honour is damaged less by a person's action than by knowledge of that action becoming public knowledge. Rumours and gossip, even if untrue, can damage the status of a family or an individual. In many cases, families are less concerned with immoral acts, than with how these will affect how they are seen by their relatives and by other members of their community

So-called "honour"-based violence differs from domestic violence in that it is often perpetrated by more than one individual, from the victim's own family or wider community. It is most usually directed towards young women, although this is not always the case: men have also been victims. So-called "honour"-based violence is not associated with particular religions or religious practice: it has been recorded across Christian, Jewish, Sikh, Hindu and Muslim communities. The perception of violence in this context as a 'cultural' practice - to be respected in the same way as other cultural practices - has in the past granted immunity to perpetrators of these violent crimes. In recent years, however, so-called "honour"-based violence has been denounced in simple terms, both in this country and internationally, as a grave abuse of human rights.

The response to the Home Affairs Select Committee of the Association of Chief Police Officers' Honour based Violence Working Group, which gives information on the activity of police forces.

Information on honour killings with a section on honour killings in the UK
and a specific case.

The Honour Network is a project designed to support victims and survivors of forced marriage and honour based violence. but its helpline is in danger of closing at the end of 2009 for lack of funding

 

 

 

 

  

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