This book is about harmful traditional practices, how they can be identified, challenged and prevented. Within these pages we seek to provide professionals and others with up-to-date knowledge that is useful to their practice and allows them to provide the best possible service to victims and survivors. At the outset it is important to make clear that no matter what the justification presented by supporters and apologists—references to tradition, religion or culture—harmful traditional practices are, as the name implies, all forms of abuse that remove choice, freedom and agency from victims/survivors, cause significant harm to victims/survivors, and are fundamental breaches of a victim’s human rights.
The widespread abuse of women and girls (and some men and boys) through systematic disadvantage, violence and other forms of inhuman and degrading treatment, including harmful traditional practices, is a matter of national and global concern. Abuse causes significant personal, financial and social costs impacting upon victims, survivors, witnesses, families, communities and services.1 These costs include serious physical and psychological injuries to victims and survivors, damage to families and communities, social exclusion and disadvantage and substantial economic loses. This pervades communities, transcending boarders, nationality, culture, gender, sexualities and socio-economic status.
The rates of violence and abuse against women and girls are staggering. In the UK in 2018/19 there are on average 100 domestic abuse murders of women, 12 honour killings, 1.4 million incidents of domestic abuse of which approximately 750,000 were criminal offences and 450,000 sexual abuse victims/survivors.2,3,4 In addition, the Crime Survey for England and Wales to year ending March 2019, shows 2.4 million people aged 16–74 years surveyed stated that they had experienced domestic abuse in the previous 12 months. In the same period the police forces in England and Wales recorded 162,030 of which 58,657 were rapes.5 Research also reveals the high economic cost of domestic violence, including the lost economic output of women, estimated in the UK alone as £66 billion annually.6 In addition, the cost to health, housing, social service care, criminal and civil justice provision amounts to £3.9 billion per year.7
Harmful Traditional Practices
The focus of this book is upon harmful traditional practices, but what are they? To begin, it is important to define some key concepts that will underpin our subsequent discussions. These include providing definitions of culture, cultural practices, tradition, and how traditional cultural practices are differentiated from those that are harmful—so-called harmful traditional practices.
There are many definitions of Culture and much debate as to which is most appropriate. For the purposes of this book we define culture in accordance with definitions drawn from the field of cross-cultural psychology. Here culture is seen as a set of interrelated values, tools and practices that are shared among groups of individuals who have a common identity. Culture is very important and strongly influences many psychological and social processes, from how an individual perceives, interprets and interacts with situations through to how an individual sees themselves, in particular their sense of who they are and their self-esteem.8
Every culture generates its own series of cultural practices and values. Cultural practices have been formally defined as,
shared perceptions of how people routinely behave in a culture9 i.e. what people should do.
While cultural values have been defined as,
shared ideals of a culture10 i.e. what people should think.
It is important to note at this juncture that cultures comprise multiple interacting practices and values that can change over time and interact with gender and other characteristics of individuals. In attempting to understand harmful cultural practices it is therefore important not to consider cultures as static or monolithic or to consider the practices as the province of ‘other,’ ‘backward’ groups who need to be reformed by a ‘wise’ West.11
Cultural practices and values are important as they are part of the broad behavioural governance of a culture, defining what behaviour is and is not acceptable for its members. Cultural practices and values have a powerful influence upon individuals. Individuals may suffer significant distress, such as loss of self-esteem, anxiety and even shame, if they don’t behave in the prescribed manner. Indeed, continued membership of a group or the culture itself is often contingent upon behaving in ways that are consistent with the demands of these practices and values. Social exclusion, isolation and damaged self-esteem is a real outcome for those who fail to conform.12
It is perhaps true to say that many cultural practices developed because they were broadly adaptive for members of that culture, that is to say were broadly beneficial to all (or some) members of the group. Indeed, certain practices and values may have at one time allowed groups to thrive. For example, strictly mandating practices such as monogamous marriage would be likely to increase the chances of survival of babies born within the marriage. The marriage practice is a socially constructed reason for the mother and father to stay together and increases the likelihood that they will. This in turn means that there would be two individuals to care for any babies born to that marriage. Two individuals, a father and mother, could work together increasing the likelihood that appropriate food could be found, and other care needs achieved. In the absence of strictly enforced monogamous marriage, there may be no social or other pressure for fathers, especially, to stay with the mother to care for the child, thus raising the risk of a child having to be cared for by a lone parent. To parent alone is significantly more challenging, meaning that some care needs may not be met. This therefore raises the risk of a baby failing to thrive and perhaps of infant mortality.
Other cultural practices were ways to cement group identity by making membership intentionally difficult to achieve. Example of this might include various (physical) trials and rites of passage that marked the point when boys became men, and where group membership was contingent upon successfully navigating these trials. Here, a sense of personal esteem comes from having achieved group membership. This in turn meant that an individual was more likely to have a personal stake in the group’s success and this increased the likelihood that they would work in the interests of the valued group.
Where cultural practices and values have been developed, held and repeated by members of a culture over long periods of time (sometimes centuries or more), they often attain the status of traditions, that is, traditional practices and traditional values. Thus, members of a culture may talk of concepts such as, ‘traditional social values,’ ‘traditional gender roles’ and ‘traditional marriages,’ and be strongly opposed to any ‘new’ ideas that could undermine these. Opposition towards new ideas often represents a real fear that the culture and way of life is under threat from the new ideas.
Although some traditional cultural practices were (and are) adaptive for some groups, others disadvantage, and even damage some group members. This may be because, in the modern world, these practices no longer confer the advantages they once did. However, this is often because some practices are (and may always have been) to the detriment of some members of the group relative to others.
Where traditional practices provide no tangible benefit (personal, medical, social or financial) and instead cause harm to the victim, these practices are Harmful Traditional Practices. This label highlights the harm the practices cause and the fact that they are motivated and justified by appeals to long-standing values and traditions.
Despite appeals to tradition, cultural or religious needs by those who advocate for or seek to excuse them, harmful traditional practices are fundamentally abuses of the human rights of victims/survivors designed to control their behaviour. All harmful traditional practices are forms of abuse that cause significant harm to women and girls in particular (although some men and boys may also be victimised). The harms can range from physical injury, lifelong physical and mental health problems, to death either by suicide, ‘forced’ suicide or murder. As those most commonly affected by harmful traditional practices are women and girls, it has been argued that one reason for the continuation of many of these practices is that they serve as a mechanism for the maintenance of male authority.13
Harmful traditional prac...