‘Cultural Boundaries’ Can Hamper Investigations of Honour-Based Abuse, UK MPs Told

A senior police officer has admitted to MPs that investigations into allegations of honour-based abuse or coercion were sometimes affected by a fear of treading on “cultural sensitivities.”

Honour-based abuse is a term that refers to manipulative or violent control of women and girls based on cultural or religious beliefs. It includes arranged marriages of underage brides, virginity testing, enforced abortion, forced marriage, and female genital mutilation (FGM), all the way up to murder.

On Wednesday Deputy Chief Constable Ivan Balhatchet, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for tackling honour-based abuse, told Parliament’s Women and Equalities Committee, “There will be times where officers and staff have not dealt with something, or dealt with it differently, because of the background of the victim and survivor or the information they’ve been given.”

He was responding to a question from Conservative MP Caroline Dinenage, who said they had heard in previous sessions from witnesses that honour-based violence might not be taken as seriously as it should be because the police are “wary of crossing cultural boundaries” or doing something “perceived as racist or culturally discriminatory.”

Balhatchet said he did not disagree with that perception and said this should be emphasised when training police officers.

“This is about the vile abuse of women and girls … This is coercion, this is control, this is violence … and that’s what I try to emphasise to anyone who may have anxiety or do things differently because of the background,” he added.

Jaswant Narwal, national lead for honour-based abuse at the Crown Prosecution Service, told the committee there was no statutory definition of honour-based abuse, unlike domestic abuse, which meant it was often difficult for prosecutors to define.

When Perpetrators Claim ‘Cultural Pressure’

She said sometimes defence lawyers sought to use “cultural pressure” from perpetrators’ ethnic or religious community as a form of mitigation when their clients were being sentenced for honour-based violence or abuse.

Narwal said, “When you look at this as a prosecutor, we would see it as an aggravating feature.”

“Because if you kill someone, you can’t then say, well, I was under cultural pressures, traditional pressures, religious pressures, community pressures, which is effectively what they’re trying to say. But that can’t be right,” she added.

Last month Zafar Iqbal, 62, was jailed for life for the murder of his wife, Naziat Zafar, who was strangled in front of her own daughters at their home in south London in 2001.

Iqbal, who believed his wife had been unfaithful, fled to Pakistan where he remained until he was extradited 20 years later.

In a victim impact statement, one of Iqbal’s daughters, who could not be named for legal reasons, said: “Our mum will not become just a statistic in honour killings. Her story lives on through us and we will always campaign to make sure women’s voices are not silenced. She will never be forgotten and will remain in our hearts.”

Edward Brown, KC, defending, had argued for a lighter sentence on the basis and said Iqbal killed his wife because she was demanding a divorce while in a relationship with another man.

Brown said: “The stated reasons for the divorce would be considered especially offensive within a patriarchal culture in which he was raised. A woman represents the moral honour of her family.”

He said Iqbal’s “anger” was fuelled by attitudes which were “very outdated by today’s UK cultural norms, but it is clear from the experts that they remain an important part of Pakistani culture and even more so in 2001 than today.”

Safeguarding Must be Police ‘Priority’

During Wednesday’s hearing in Parliament, Balhatchet was asked what measures the police could put in place to protect victims or potential victims of honour-based abuse and violence.

He said, “We’ve got some really strong and good legislation here, around protection orders for forced marriage and FGM.”

Balhatchet said safeguarding of the victim needed to be the police’s priority and he added: “You shouldn’t be waiting for the results of the court case. The risk to the victim survivor is from the very beginning.”

He said the victim in cases such as FGM could be at risk “forever” and he said, “Very often relatives and close relatives, shocking though it is, but it is often the parents involved as well.”

Honour-based abuse is a term which has been coined in the last 20 years and at the extreme end of the spectrum there have been a handful of murders which have been referred to as “honour killings,” although that is a term which has been rejected by many women’s rights activists.

One of the first to make headlines was the murder in 2004 of Shafilea Ahmed, 17, whose body was dumped in a river in Cumbria after she brought “shame” on her family.

Her father Iftikhar Ahmed, 52, and her mother Farzana, 49, were eventually convicted of her murder in 2012 and jailed for life.

PA Media contributed to this report.