Honour-Based Violence

Experiences and Counter-Strategies in Iraqi Kurdistan and the UK Kurdish Diaspora

Nazand Begikhani, Aisha K. Gill

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317121299
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

'Honour'-based violence is a form of intimate violence committed against women (and some men) by husbands, fathers, brothers and male relatives. A very common social phenomenon, it has existed throughout history and in a wide variety of societies across the world, from white European to African cultures, from South and East Asia to Latin America. The most extreme form of Honour-based violence - 'honour' killing - tragically remains widespread. Over the last decade, national and international efforts, including new policy development and activist campaigns, have begun to challenge the practice. Based on a pioneering and unique study, conducted collaboratively by the Centre for Gender and Violence Research, University of Bristol, the University of Roehampton and Kurdish Women's Rights Watch, this book is at the forefront of this new and challenging policy direction.

Chapter 1
Understanding and Challenging ‘Honour’-Based Violence

This book begins the process of breaking new ground. In the book, we discuss a painful and difficult subject, and one which has been, until recently, largely hidden from public view across the world. This subject is violence committed in the name of ‘honour’. In the vast majority of cases, ‘honour’-based violence (HBV) is committed against women by male family members. Although views are changing, this type of violence continues to be regarded as more or less acceptable and to be expected across a wide range of societies, and ethnic and social groups. ‘Honour’-based violence takes many forms but, at its most extreme, it results in the death of girls and women (and occasionally young men), killed by members of their own family.

Over the last two decades, this form of inter-personal and community violence has drawn growing international attention. Slowly, and in the face of various types of resistance, change has begun to take place in terms of both social attitudes and policy responses. This shift is reflected in a number of publications in the 2000s exploring HBV, including the seminal essay collection ‘Honour’: Crimes, Paradigms and Violence Against Women (Welchman and Hossain, 2005), to which Nazand Begikhani contributed a chapter on Iraqi Kurdistan. This book, however, is the first on HBV that deals specifically with Kurdish communities. Arriving at this point has been fraught with difficulties in obtaining funding for research (finally awarded in 2008), and in confronting lack of interest and, sometimes, hostile opposition to such research, the general lack of awareness of the issue, and the often wavering, or non-existent, commitment of relevant agencies and authorities to tackling HBV. The book has been a long time in the making.

Background

Achieving change in how societies deal with ‘honour’-based violence is not an easy task. Since the 1990s, campaigners and governments have tentatively begun to address the issue through domestic and international instruments, research, and reports, though with varying degrees of commitment and success. Although little by way of substantial change has yet been achieved, there have been many positive developments. HBV is now often characterised across contexts and countries, not as honourable (as has mainly been the case throughout history), but as dis-honourable, calling into question the very term ‘honour’-based violence. Critically, it is now seen as degrading to perpetrators rather than victims, which was not the case in the past.

‘Honour’-based violence policies and initiatives have been developed by the United Nations (UN) and other national and international bodies, from governments to local communities, and from media groups to faith leaders; in this, women’s rights groups have played an especially critical role the world over. This book is part of this positive trajectory, illuminating many general aspects of so-called HBV as well as the specific ways it manifests in the context of Kurdish communities.

Honour or Dishonour?

It is difficult to know how to refer to ‘honour’-based violence (Welchman and Hossain, 2005; Idriss and Abbas, 2011). Some commentators suggest that the very word ‘honour’ is problematic, since it traditionally connotes good deeds, worthy actions, and earned respect. Other activists and researchers suggest the term should be expanded to ‘so-called honour-based violence’ (Begikhani, Gill and Hague, 2010; Gill, 2011, pp. 218–23), while others (including the authors of this book) prefer to mark out the word ‘honour’ with quotation marks to indicate that its meaning can and should be contested (Sen, 2005). Thus, the word ‘honour’ is placed in quotation marks in this introductory chapter to stress the problematic nature of any concept of ‘honour’ that leads deliberately and directly to violence and abuse (Sen, 2005; Welchman and Hossain, 2005). The quotation marks are omitted in subsequent chapters for ease of reading.

This is a painful and difficult subject. Readers who have experienced ‘honour’-based and other forms of gendered violence, or who are grieving someone killed or abused in the name of ‘honour’, may well find it upsetting, as, indeed, may those with no direct experience of these disturbing issues. The subject, and the sometimes shocking stories of victims and survivors, are distressing and stay in the mind long after reading. However, emotional pain is part of the terrain and cannot be avoided if we are to confront and, ultimately, tackle this form of violence against women (VAW) and the values and beliefs that underlie it. On a personal level, it is important for readers not to underestimate the possible psychological and emotional impacts, and to try to get support if needed from friends, families, colleagues, professional therapists or counsellors.

Kurdistan and the Kurdish Diaspora

Kurdistan (the ‘land of Kurds’) is not currently recognised as an independent state. It crosses the borders of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and the former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan (Dahlman, 2002). However, the Iraqi Kurdistan Region is a constitutional entity comprising a Kurdish homeland within the State of Iraq. It borders Syria to the West, Iran to the East, and Turkey to the North, with a rapidly increasing population of around 4 million people (Kurdistan Regional Government [KRG], 2012). (A more detailed history of Kurdistan is given in Chapter 3.)

In this book, a Kurdish person is defined as having Kurdish ancestry, speaking Kurdish, including its various dialects (or having direct family who do so), or living (or sharing ancestral roots) in the various regions of Kurdistan. Despite considerable exodus to metropolitan cities and to the West, many Kurdish people continue to live in small villages in the various Kurdish areas of the Middle East. Most pursue rural occupations. For many, particularly, but not solely, those in such rural areas, being Kurdish can additionally imply continued, if weakening, adherence to tribal patterns of living and relationships based on patriarchal values in which men dominate almost all areas of life (Begikhani, 2005). (See Chapter 2 for a more detailed discussion of the term ‘patriarchy’.)

However, large numbers of Kurdish people have recently moved to rapidly expanding urban areas. In the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, the major cities, after a turbulent recent history (and despite unpredictable changes in process at the time of writing), are moderately stable and are starting to prosper. Many Kurds have also moved to, or in the past been exiled to, the industrialised West, seeking both freedom from state repression and a higher material standard of living. It is hard to assess how many Kurdish people there are in Europe as census information on Kurdish immigrants, refugees and citizens is unavailable: most relevant data-sets categorise people on the basis of their country of origin, rather than their ethnicity. Thus, Kurds are usually grouped with Iraqi, Iranian, Syrian or Turkish nationals (Mojab and Gorman, 2007, p. 63).

However, it is clear that (in the last few decades in particular) many Kurdish people have fled from repression, war and instability in their homelands to Europe and North America. Migration to Europe began in the 1960s when a significant number of young Kurdish intellectuals moved abroad for educational reasons. From the late 1970s, larger numbers migrated as a result of the increasing repression of Kurds in eastern Turkey; small groups also began to arrive from Iraqi Kurdistan following the regional conflicts of the late 1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s and 1990s, migration from the Iraqi Kurdistan Region increased dramatically as a result of the First Gulf War, the violent repression of Kurdish uprisings, and the oppressive, indeed genocidal, actions of the Ba’ath regime. Thus, in the last two decades the overwhelming majority of Iraqi Kurds coming to the United Kingdom (UK) have been asylum-seekers and exiles, though some have been students, professionals and business people. As early as 1991, Safran claimed that the Kurdish community in the UK could be considered a true diasporic group as it comprised individuals and families dispersed from their original homes, as well as doubly- or triply-displaced migrants: this is still true today. The community as a whole remains culturally and politically connected, not least because many are strongly committed to the preservation of the Kurdish homelands (Safan, 1991, pp. 83–4; Begikhani, 2005). In short, a large Kurdish diaspora has been created in the UK (especially London) and other Western countries as a result of the history of difficulties and discrimination experienced by Kurdish peoples (see Chapters 2, 3 and 6 for a more detailed discussion).

What do We Mean by ‘Honour’-Based Violence?

‘Honour’-based violence (HBV) is generally understood as consisting of a variety of forms of intimate violence committed most commonly against (young) women (and some men) by uncles, fathers, brothers, husbands and other male (and sometimes female) relatives. It generally involves a premeditated act aimed at restoring lost or threatened ‘honour’, as constructed by the family and wider community (Begikhani, 2005; Gill, 2010). HBV is usually differentiated from other forms of domestic and gendered violence on the basis that it occurs within a framework of collective family and community structures. Thus, ‘honour’ crimes are perpetuated within patriarchal norms and traditions and a strict code of silence about such issues.

HBV has existed throughout remembered history in a broad variety of societies, from white European to African cultures, and from South/East Asia to Latin America (Abu Odeh, 1996; Begikhani, 2005). Codes of honour governing most aspects of inter-personal behaviour operated widely across the world in the past, and still do to a considerable extent in some cultures. Where such codes concern family and personal life, they tend to revolve around women, with the broad aim of regulating women’s sexual behaviour and availability. Families and communities frequently strive to ensure that ‘honour’ codes are strictly observed because real or perceived transgressions are often seen to ‘stain’ the ‘honour’ of the transgressor’s entire family, kin-group or community. Such transgressions may be punished by HBV, including ‘honour’ killings, in order to ‘cleanse’ the collective ‘honour’ of the family and community (Gill, 2010; Gill, Begikhani and Hague, 2012, p. 80).

HBV covers a wide range of actions including physical violence, assaults, maiming and killings. It also includes coerced suicide (including by enforced self-immolation), starvation, poisoning, forced marriage of women (frequently to a man who has already raped the woman concerned), and the curtailment of liberty, basic rights and/or education. ‘Honour’ revenge is often discussed as a subcategory of ‘honour’ crime, along with other forms of coercion and abuse including abandonment, removal of children, genital mutilation, forced virginity, forced hymen repair, forced abortion, and imprisonment (Welchman and Hossain, 2005; UNAMI, UNHR and ASUDA, 2009).

The most extreme form of HBV – killing in the name of ‘honour’ – is tragically widespread. Reports submitted to the 2002 UN Commission on Human Rights document the continuing occurrence of this practice in Bangladesh, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Pakistan, Morocco, Sweden, Turkey, Uganda and America (see also Begikhani, 2005; Welchman and Hossain, 2005; Gill, 2009). The UN Population Fund estimates that 5,000 women are killed in the name of ‘honour’ each year (UNFPA, 2000; Welchman and Hossain, 2005).

What Types of Community are Affected by ‘Honour’-Based Violence?

The literature shows that HBV has occurred in many countries around the world throughout history. Patterns of family ‘honour’ violence are evident, for example, in South and Central America, Mediterranean societies, various Eastern European cultures, and in communities in many countries of the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, Europe and North America (Meeto and Mirza, 2007). The practice is not confined to any particular type of society, community, religion, culture or social class/stratum (Anitha and Gill, 2011). Thus, it is important not to associate HBV with one specific culture or religion and to challenge popular stereotypes that suggest, for instance, that HBV derives from Islamic beliefs.

In the UK, HBV commonly comes to the British public’s attention when particularly shocking cases are broadcast by the media in a sensationalised or voyeuristic way. The community involved (or the relevant country of origin) is often stigmatised as a likely site of such violence, with all other communities cast as blameless and free of these behaviours (Anitha and Gill, 2011). In this way, the crimes involved are usually identified strongly, either implicitly or explicitly, with certain ethnic groups or communities, which may then, be collectively condemned. Misleading perceptions of this sort have often led to polarised and ill-informed debates about immigration and gender equality, especially in the UK and other European countries (Meeto and Mirza, 2007; Gill, 2010).

It is not accurate to stigmatise particular communities en masse in this way (Welchman and Hossain, 2005; Gill, 2010). Nevertheless, this has been the case for Kurdish populations. In the UK, for example, general negative views about Kurdish communities have been engendered by a small number of HBV cases involving Kurds (Begikhani, 2005; Kurdish Human Rights Project, 2009; Kurdish Women’s Rights Watch, 2009). However, recognising the universality of HBV does not absolve individual societies and communities from addressing their context-specific manifestations of these practices (Mojab and Hassanpour, 2002; Kurdish Human Rights Project, 2009; Gill, 2011, p. 220).

‘Honour’-Based Violence is Best Understood as a Form of Violence Against Women

The weight of international research suggests that HBV is most effectively conceptualised and understood as a form of violence against women (Begikhani, 2005; Welchman and Hossain, 2005; Gill, 2008; Idriss and Abbas, 2011). Violence against women (VAW) encompasses all forms of violence that have a gendered dimension in terms of who commits it, who experiences it, and why. The UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (1993) states that the abuse of women by men takes many forms, including physical, emotional and sexual violence. VAW is often a manifestation of unequal power relations and the enduring notion, across the world, that women should, in a variety of ways, be under the control of men. HBV fits precisely into this definition.

Moreover, when HBV occurs against men, it is usually still a gendered act in that it is almost always motivated by real or perceived transgressions regarding the relationships of male victims with women. As a result of these transgressions, male victims may be subjected to violence, ostracisation, sexual mutilation, persecution or murder in the name of ‘honour’. Although women have been known to perpetrate HBV, they rarely take a direct role, instead sometimes being complicit in agreeing with, supporting or sanctioning violence that is then carried out by male relatives. In some cases, women are involved in HBV because they subscribe powerfully to the socio-cultural norms and traditions that discriminate against them, though in others it is because they are not in a powerful enough position to prevent the violence and might even be at risk if they were seen not to support their relatives’ actions. Thus, while this book is ostensibly about ‘honour’-based violence, the core of argument that this phenomenon should actually be defined as a form of violence against women.

As discussed above, the use of the term ‘honour crime’ is by no means straightforward (Welchman and Hossain, 2005, p. 4). First, the application of the word ‘honour’ to forms of violence that overwhelmingly afflict women lends support to the idea that ‘honour’ is intricately tied to female behaviour. Second, the use of the word ‘honour’ is inherently problematic, not least because it is susceptible to ‘eroticisation’ (Welchman and Hossain, 2005, p. 4) whereby whole cultures and communities are blamed for acts of VAW. Narayan (1997) has argued that while policy-makers and academics need to be responsive to the diversity of women’s lives both within and across national contexts, they should also avoid the danger of painting a picture of cultural differences that might constitute cultural ‘essentialism’ and so play into the blanket-stereotyping of whole communities. Conceptualising HBV as a specific type of VAW that operates through ‘honour’ codes legitimised by patriarchal values helps to avoid these pitfalls (Gill, Begikhani and Hague, 2012, p. 76).

While there is a tendency in the West to see ‘honour’ killings as related to specific non-Western cultural traditions (Piper, 2004, p. 101), neither this nor other forms of HBV are confined to any particular religion, culture, type of society or social stratum, a point made above but worth reiterating (Ortner, 1978; Mojab and Abdo, 2004). Bourdieu (1977) argues that ‘honour’ is not a specific aspect of cultural practice, rather it emerges from a constellation of interpersonal exchanges. Thus, even though ‘honour’ crimes are found in many different societies, each unique social and cultural context should be individually evaluated to determine how and why specific ‘honour’-based practices have arisen. As Pope (2004) stresses, the forms that ‘honour crimes’ take differ not only from country to country, but also from community to community, and even family to family. This is because different meanings are attributed to the notion of ‘honour’ in different contexts. These meanings also change and evolve over time (Gill, Begikhani and Hague, 2012, pp. 76–7).

Nonetheless, despite these complexities, both the mainstream media and individual politicians and professionals in the UK (and internationally) regularly attribute HBV solely to particular geographical regions, socio-ethnic groups or faiths. However, many feminists have argued that all fundamental religious movements (including Christian ones) have a strong tendency to use the control of women’s bodies symbolically to assert a broad agenda of authoritarian politics and control (Werbner, 2007; Yuval-Davis, 2009). Thus, understanding why HBV occurs requires looking beyond simple descriptive labels and cultural stereotypes and, instead, examining the meanings ascribed to the term ‘honour’ in different communities.

In overall terms, the literature suggests that ‘honour’ codes and associated views about the subordinate position of women are embedded in broad and pervasive social structures and ways of thinking that revolve around gendered values and norms that legitimise control of women’s sexual and other behaviour. The result is the imposition of restrictions on the lives and activities of women, with any perceived ‘deviation’ from these controls being likely to attract some form of retribution or punishment (Begikhani, 2005; Gill, 2006).

While ‘honour’ killings may not be prevalent the world over, some idea of honour has existed in almost all human groupings (Wikan, 2008). In many societies, throughout history and presently, male ‘honour’ has been viewed as dependent on an individual’s public reputation and, thus, as something that can be actively achieved. Female ‘honour’, on the other hand, has usually been seen as determined not by active achievement but by the avoidance of certain behaviours and especially by sexual discretion. Men acquire ‘honour’ by virtue of their character, family, position and public behaviour, but they can easily lose it because of ‘dis-honourable’ behaviour by ‘their’ womenfolk, which also reflects negatively on the wider family and community (Begikhani, 2003).

Thus, HBV is gendered in that is often motivated by a wish to control women, especially young women and girls who have engaged in friendships, relationships, or even minor social contact with men to whom they are not related or who are deemed inappropriate. Innuendo can be enough to incite retribution. In this way, women’s sexual and social choices come to be controlled by male family members and by generally-accepted beliefs that women should obey strict codes of behaviour overseen by male/senior relatives (Sen, 2003; Welchman and Hossain, 2005). The likelihood of falling victim to HBV acts to disciplin...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Author Biographies
• Foreword
• 1 Understanding and Challenging ‘Honour’-Based Violence
• 2 Defining and Responding to Honour-Based Violence and Patriarchal Social Relations
• 3 The Context: Iraqi Kurdistan Region
• 4 The Nature of HBV and Women’s Voices from Iraqi Kurdistan
• 5 Media Representation of Honour-Based Violence
• 6 Honour Crimes and Kurdish Women in the Diaspora
• 7 Issues for Law, Policy and Practice in Iraqi Kurdistan
• 8 Conclusions: Moving Forward
• Appendix 1: The Action Plan for Iraqi Kurdistan
• Appendix 2: Recommendations for Action in the UK
• Appendix 3: Aims and Methods
• Bibliography
• Index