Honour based abuse
Honour Based Abuse is often thought of as a ‘cultural’, ‘traditional’ or ‘religious’ problem. It can affect people of all ages, but often begins early in the family home.
It can lead to a deeply embedded form of coercive control, built on expectations about acceptable and unacceptable behaviours. Control is often established without overt violence against the victim. For example, family members may threaten to kill themselves or ostracise the victim. Perpetrators are often partners or ex-partners, or family members.
Honour based abuse can be distinguished from other forms of violence and abuse, as it is often committed with some degree of approval and/or collusion from family and/or community members.
For some communities, the concept of ‘honour’ is prized above the safety and wellbeing of individuals. To compromise a family’s ‘honour’ is to bring dishonour and shame which can have severe consequences. This is sometimes used to justify emotional abuse, physical abuse, disownment and in some cases even murder.
Murders in “so called” honour, (often called Honour killings) are murders in which predominantly women are killed for actual or perceived immoral behaviour, or not followed what they believe to be the correct code of behaviour and has caused dishonour to the family which is deemed to have breached the honour code of a family or community, causing shame.
‘Honour’ based abuse happens because of gender inequality in families and communities, where women are denied the right to have choice and control over their own lives. These crimes of violence can include assault, imprisonment or murder. So-called ‘honour’ crimes are more common against women and girls because they tend to be made more responsible for carrying the family’s virtue, but can happen to men and boys as well.
Honour Based Abuse can take many forms, including -
- child marriage
- virginity testing
- enforced abortion
- forced marriage
- female genital mutilation
- physical abuse
- sexual abuse
- economic abuse
- coercive control