Information for people who come into contact with victims of honour-based crime

Yes, honour-based violence and oppression is a form of violence and oppression that is carried out to preserve or restore violated honour. And that requires a brief description of what honour is, and why honour is so important that people are prepared to resort to violence and oppression in order to defend it.

My name is Devin Rexvid, and I’m a researcher who specialises in honour-based oppression and violence. I’ve carried out several studies within this field.

In most societies, honour is seen as something positive. However, the positive aspects differ in different societies and at different times. In contemporary Sweden, for many people honour means being honest, doing the right thing, not taking advantage of the system, and so on. But that’s not the case in other contexts. There, honour is primarily associated with the ability of brothers, fathers and male relatives to control women’s bodies, behaviours and sexuality. And in that kind of context, honour is the highest value. It’s more important than life, and more important than freedom. It becomes a matter of life and death – or of life or death. The most desirable thing in society.

I may be an honest man, and I may be a successful man, but if I can’t convince the rest of the collective – those who share the same concepts of honour and dishonour, shame and shamelessness – I lose my honour. I don’t benefit much from the other positive values, the qualities such as honesty, trustworthiness, hospitality and success in education or employment, and so on. The most important thing is my ability to control the sexuality of the women around me, in order to be considered an honest, respectable man.

Some scholars describe honour culture as an ideal of violence. That it is legitimate – and socially sanctioned – to resort to violence to maintain one’s honour or to restore violated honour.

It is a form of oppression and violence that is used to preserve or restore honour. This is achieved via various so-called control mechanisms. And to put it very simply, you could say that honour-based oppression and violence has two distinct aspects. On the one hand, there is violence and oppression based on the ideal of innocence, which includes unmarried women of any age. An attempt is made to maintain this ideal by separating the sexes at home, during leisure time, at school, at preschool, at work and in public spaces – in other words, there is gender segregation. The ideal of innocence is also upheld through early marriage, child marriage, forced marriage and cousins intermarrying, mainly in order to keep the property of the family, of the relatives, within the group itself.

Alongside gender segregation and marriage traditions, we also have female genital mutilation, which is done to reduce a girl’s sexual desire. It is done to make her associate her sex with pain, with perceiving it as a source of shame, impurity, dirtiness, and so on.

So all these control mechanisms involve elements of oppression, in the form of limitations, constraints and restrictions that prevent the individual from self-actualising, from developing their physical abilities, their cognitive abilities, and their emotional and social abilities, but also acts of violence, ranging from sexual violence in the context of genital mutilation, virginity checks and forced hymenoplasty, to exposure to sexual abuse in the context of child marriage and forced marriage, and – in the most extreme cases – honour killing if a female relative transgresses the norms of honour and brings dishonour upon the family. So then you are prepared to physically kill her to prevent social death, whereby the men in the family die in the eyes of those around them, and they are seen as worthless, as nobodies.

Honour-based violence can take the form of physical violence, mental violence, sexual violence, symbolic violence and material violence.

Let us take physical violence as an example. This can involve forced virginity checks, kicking and punching, or assaults using objects that are usually associated with uncleanliness and dirt: slippers, a dustpan, a broom or a shoe horn. It can also involve acid attacks to disfigure the face. It can involve the forced shaving of women’s hair, genital mutilation, and in extreme cases honour killing – the physical elimination of an individual who has brought dishonour upon the family.

Mental violence can also take many forms. The victim is made invisible. A daughter who has been seen with a boy, for example, or has had a boyfriend, or had sex before marriage, is made invisible. Nobody talks to her. “We never had a daughter by that name.” She is not allowed to sit at the dinner table, or she is made to sit with her back to the TV. She is not allowed to participate in family activities. She is called abusive names. Unlawful threats of various kinds are made: “We’ll send you away” (to her parents’ former home country), or “We’ll make your life hell”. Punishments are threatened, piling enormous psychological pressure on the victim. There are many more examples of mental violence in this context.

Moving on to sexual violence, I’ve already mentioned forced virginity checks, genital mutilation and forced hymenoplasty. But there’s also incest, rape, sexual assault and sexual abuse that may also be perpetrated by men outside the family who can exploit the victim’s vulnerability to honour-based oppression and violence. It could be a former boyfriend: “If you don’t keep having sex with me, I’ll contact your family, your relatives, and tell them that you had sex with me voluntarily. Or I’ll send these intimate pictures to your family and relatives.” A blackmail situation. And what is specific to honour culture is that when women and girls are sexually abused, whether it be incest or sexual assault, it is usually them who are punished, including by their own families. So in some ways, being a victim of sexual abuse in an honour context is a double-edged sword.

Moving on to economic violence, this involves not being allowed to go out and work, for example, and becoming dependent on male relatives: brothers, fathers or husbands. It can involve not being able to use your own financial assets and resources, even if you go out and work. Women’s bank cards are kept in their father’s or husband’s wallets. But it can also involve destroying objects that are important to the victim.

So that’s the kind of violence that can be perpetrated against the victims. That’s the part of honour-based oppression and violence that we call honour-based violence. Then there’s the oppression aspect, which warrants a chapter in itself.

You could say that it takes the form of everyday limitations that ultimately cause the individual to die mentally. For example, when you are not allowed to dress the way you want, when you are not allowed to spend time with any of your friends, when you have no free time after school, when you are not allowed to use your body to dance, or to play sports, when you are not allowed to have sex, be in love or have relationships, to develop emotionally and so on, you die. You wither away as an individual. That’s what I mean by mental death, as opposed to physical death as the result of honour-based oppression and violence.

Exposure to honour-based oppression and violence can be detected in different ways. There are different signs to look out for. But this requires knowledge of what honour-based oppression and violence actually is. It can involve children and young people expressing anxiety and concern in connection with trips abroad or school holidays. They may have overheard conversations describing how they are going to another country, for example. Or that visitors will be coming and a suitable candidate has been found that they are going to marry or be engaged to. It could be that they are not allowed to take part in certain school subjects. They may not be allowed to attend sex education classes, swimming, art lessons, biology lessons, music classes or school trips with overnight stays. It may involve expectations being placed on boys and young men, that they should control their sisters and their female cousins. Everything from preschool to school, to public life in general. As soon as female relatives go anywhere, male guardians are supposed to be there to control them and to act an extension of the family. So you can look out for all these signs.

Honour-based oppression and violence is a fairly widespread problem in Sweden today. There are no nationwide statistics, but recent studies show that around 60 percent of girls from a non-Nordic background have some kind of restriction on their choice of future partner. Either they have to choose between a few options, or they don’t have a choice at all. If we add these two groups of girls who have restrictions placed on them regarding their choice of a future partner, this adds up to just over 60 percent of all those from a non-Nordic background. And then there are more than 30,000 women and girls who are thought to have been subjected to genital mutilation.

More often than not, it is girls and women who are subjected to the most severe forms of honour-based oppression and violence. But boys and men can also be victims. Sometimes from their own family if they don’t live up to the family’s expectations, that they should control the women around them, such as their sisters. They may be married off, scolded, shunned, isolated or sent away to be ‘rehabilitated’. Or it may involve men outside the family who have had a love affair with a woman or a girl living in an honour context, and have been punished for it. There have been several cases of honour killings of young men in Sweden.

The perpetrators of this violence are usually men, but women are also involved. They may be accomplices who have embraced the norms of honour of their own free will, perpetrating honour-based oppression and violence against their daughters, their daughters-in-law, their sons or men outside the family. But other women are forced into it. They are victims themselves, but are forced to carry out honour-based oppression and violence against others.

We could also ask who the perpetrators of honour-based oppression and violence are. Where in the world are they located? Within which groups are honour-based oppression and violence carried out? This is a form of violence and oppression that is practised by different groups: different ethnic groups, different religious groups, but also by people of no faith – atheists. So this is a specific culture with its own motivations, its own system of norms regarding how women and men should behave, and also how they should be punished if they break the code of honour.

Researchers have talked about the classic patriarchal belt, or the ‘belt of honour’, which encompasses the whole of the Middle East. But it is important to have a balanced view of the Middle East. The region is home to people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds. Within the same ethnic group, there are both advocates of honour norms and opponents of honour-based oppression and violence. It is very important to remember that.

Society needs to take a variety of measures to tackle honour-based oppression and violence. Action is needed in many different areas, ranging from legislation, creating new laws and strengthening existing laws, to combatting control mechanisms such as genital mutilation, child marriage, forced marriage, gender segregation, and so on. However, legislation alone is not enough; society must also provide training and invest in measures to improve the skills of the authorities who deal with this target group.

Another important area for combating honour-based oppression and violence is the school system, from preschool through to primary and secondary school. Preschool is important, because it is here that we have the opportunity to ‘reshape’ children. Research also shows that this is where society has a greater opportunity to influence children’s norms and values. And it is at this age that the family passes on the norms and values of honour to their children. Once they have passed the preschool stage, it is not impossible to achieve changes, but it is difficult. This is not to say that we don’t need to work on honour issues in primary and secondary schools. We also see many girls there who should still be attending school, but who disappear after the holidays. They simply don’t come back, as they have been married off. Many children are not allowed to attend compulsory school lessons. It is essential to uphold compulsory education, which is not just an obligation – it is a right. It is about children’s right to knowledge, which takes precedence over their parents’ culture, traditions, beliefs, and so on. A very important right. Make sure they attend all compulsory subjects, and get the same education as any other child.

If you are a public official and you come into contact with people who have been subjected to honour violence, it is very important to work on building trustful relationships. The story may not emerge during your first meeting, or the first conversation. It is crucial to signal care and empathy: “I’m here for you, to defend your legal rights and freedoms.” And show that you believe the victim’s story – don’t question it. Because research into honour-based oppression and violence demonstrates that people are extremely unlikely to make such serious allegations against their own family if there is no good reason for doing so.

And ensure that knowledge and skills are available. If you are not sure that you have sufficient knowledge and skills, don’t hesitate to contact the national competence team in Östergötland. But simply having knowledge is not enough on its own. You also need courage to see the violence, to see the oppression and the vulnerability. Sometimes you might be afraid for your own safety. Maybe it’s not just an individual you’re dealing with, but a whole family, a whole group of relatives. If so, it’s important to always remember that, as an official, you have an organisation behind you, with a security policy and so on. And if there is good reason to be afraid for yourself, what about those who are vulnerable?

My strongest recommendation to those of you who encounter victims of honour-based violence is to show courage. The issue we are dealing with challenges the basic norms, principles and values of society. The principle of equality, of everyone’s equal value. The principle of secularism. And to deal with this, you need to have courage, and knowledge. It shouldn’t be a matter of pride. If you lack knowledge, you mustn’t hesitate to pick up the phone and speak with experts in order to help and support the vulnerable.

And it’s also important to remember that honour culture gives parents, the family, the right to take the life of their child when their honour is at stake. In such a context, there are no allies within the family. The allies may be outside the family. They may be a teacher, a headteacher, a counsellor, a social worker, a police officer, a lawyer or a volunteer.

You have a very important role to play if this target group is to enjoy their legal rights and freedoms.