Honour-Based Abuse
Honour-based abuse is where violence or coercion is used under the guise of protecting or restoring a sense of “honour”, associated with community and social norms. In romantic relationships, this type of abuse will often occur when a partner’s actual or perceived behaviours are viewed as shameful or bringing dishonour. Examples of these behaviours include expressing autonomy, violating expected gender roles, or ending a relationship. As with other forms of domestic abuse, honour-based abuse does not happen on its own, and will often occur alongside or include emotional, physical, sexual and financial abuse, and coercive control. In some cases, honour-based abuse can escalate to murder.
Signs of Honour-Based Abuse
Signs of honour-based abuse include running away from home and a family history of relatives going missing. Individuals will often have unexplained absences or poor performance at school or work. As with other forms of abuse, such as physical or emotional abuse, victims of this type of abuse often act withdrawn and depressed, and may have unexplained physical injuries.
Who Can Experience Honour-Based Abuse?
Anyone can experience domestic abuse, but from the statistics available, women, girls, LGBTQ+ and disabled individuals, and those from backgrounds where there are strict behavioural expectations are at higher risk.
Breaking Free from Honour-Based Abuse
If you or someone you know is experiencing honour-based abuse, support is available. Organisations, legal protections, and safe spaces exist to help survivors escape and rebuild their lives. Contact your local police, 101 or 999, depending on the severity. If you need mental health support, contact your GP to arrange counselling. The Available Services page has a list of support services.
What Can Honour-Based Abuse Look Like?
Female Genital Mutilation
Often done to young girls and women, female genital mutilation (also known as FGM) is any procedure involving the partial or total removal or other injury to external female genitalia for non-medical reasons. This has been illegal in the UK since 2003.
Not having access to important documents
The important documents could refer to a birth certificate, driving licence, a passport and more. This limits an individual's ability to get a job, a bank account and their access to further education.
Not being allowed any freedom
This ranges from not being allowed access to technology or the internet to not being able to see people as a whole. It can also include financial and educational restrictions, and is done to increase the dependency on the abuser and stop the victim from accessing help.
Forced marriage or abortion
This refers to when someone is forced to get married or have an abortion. This can be done through threats, coercion, bribery, or plain force. In any of these instances, consent is not freely given.
Any other form of Domestic Abuse
When Domestic Abuse is committed under the guise of protecting honour, this is a form of honour-based abuse. Other forms of domestic abuse include financial abuse, sexual abuse, disability-based abuse, coercive control and emotional abuse.
Pressure to move or visit people abroad
This may be done under the guise of visiting friends or family for a special occasion but will oftentimes result in the victim being forced into marriage or subjected to FGM.