LONDON: Rukhsana Naz was 19 when her mother pinned her to the floor of their family house and her brother strangled her with a length of plastic cable. Sahjda Bibi, 21, was preparing to celebrate her wedding when her cousin stabbed her 22 times with a kitchen knife. The father of 16-year-old Heshu Yones slit her throat because he disapproved of her Western habits and non-Muslim boyfriend.
All were victims of “honour killings”, murdered by relatives who believed they had brought shame on their families through their behaviour or choice of boyfriend, husband or lover.
Until recently, honour crime was rarely reported and often misunderstood in Britain, viewed as something which happened elsewhere — mainly in the Middle East or southern Asia.
But a series of gruesome killings has forced Britons to recognise that such crimes, although still rare, are committed here too, often within the country’s large ethnic Bangladeshi, Indian and Pakistani communities.
Girls and young women have been killed, abducted, physically abused and held prisoner in their own homes. Police believe scores have been taken out of the country, often to the Indian subcontinent, and have disappeared.
Nazir Afzal, director of Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in west London where there is a large south Asian community, says there have been at least a dozen honour killings in the country in the past year.
“And murder is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “There are other crimes, like rape, abduction and physical violence, which we would consider steps on the stairway to murder.”
The CPS, which decides whether to press charges against suspects in British criminal cases, says such crimes are on the rise, particularly since the July 7 London bombings.
The bombs, which killed 52 people on the city’s transport system, were planted by four Muslim extremist suicide bombers, all of them British.
That shone a harsh spotlight on the country’s 1.6 million Muslims and, according to the CPS, prompted some Muslim families to turn in on themselves, with worrying consequences.
“I’ve certainly seen more cases of honour crime since July 7,” said Afzal. “When communities perceive themselves to be under threat they tend to turn in on themselves, regardless of whether that perception has any basis in fact.
“They try to restore and reinforce their own social norms. They put pressure on their own members to conform, and if they don’t conform there is sometimes some kind of retribution.”
Specialists on violence against women also say social cultural changes, partly spread by globalisation and mass media, have left men from southern Asia feeling threatened and women are bearing the brunt of their fear.
The CPS stresses honour crime is not just a Muslim issue.
“I’m aware of crimes being committed in Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Brazil, Spain, France, Italy, and also within those communities in this country,” Afzal said.
Jasvinder Sanghera set up the Karma Nirvana centre for women from the Asian subcontinent in Derby, central England, because of her own experiences.
At 14, her family showed her a photograph of the man she was told to marry. Her mother refused to heed her objections and a week before her wedding day Sanghera ran away, never to return.—Reuters
