West Yorkshire charity launches campaign for legal definition of honour-based abuse

A West Yorkshire charity is launching a campaign urging the government to bring in a statutory definition for honour-based abuse - saying we can't tackle the crime until we have one.

It was one of the recommendations from a group of MPs last June. The Women and Equalities Committee said they found ‘significant support’ for a shared legal definition which would improve social and professional understanding and ultimately help bring abusers to justice.

But the government rejected the call, saying such a definition was unnecessary.

Karma Nirvana says addressing honour-based abuse is an ongoing challenge, hindered by the lack of a clear statutory definition.

In response to the recent Channel 4 documentary "The Push: Murder on The Cliff," the charity is launching a campaign called #Push4Change to coincide with International Women's Day.

Yasmin Javed is backing the campaign - her daughter Fawziyah is the focus of the documentary after she was pushed from Arthur’s Seat by her abusive husband Kashif Anwar.

The programme documents Fawziyah’s experiences of domestic abuse, which was compounded by honour dynamics.

“For the government to actively say ‘it’s not something we’re planning to do’ sends a really disheartening message to people that are affected by this, like your experiences aren’t that much of a priority," says Natasha Rattu, chief executive of Karma Nirvana.

“We have seen, working with this government for many years, how actually nothing really is meaningfully changing in this space.

“If the government genuinely wants to put an end to it they’ve got to start by accurately defining it.

“Lots of victims don’t even recognise they’re suffering honour-based abuse because of how it’s normalised within some communities. By defining it we’re putting it firmly under the spotlight as a type of abuse that this government is really serious about tackling and until they do this I think we’re never really going to progress.

“We find that many different professionals are capturing SOME data on different definitions so ALL of your data is really inconsistent and unreliable.

“We still have a significant number of honour killings, 12 every year in the UK. Yet we can’t accurately capture data on how many lower-level crimes are happening before it gets to that stage.

“But most importantly survivors want to have a legal definition that attributes to what their experiences have been.”

Karma Nirvana handled 2,549 honour-based abuse cases in 2023 and received 9,074 contacts to their honour-based abuse helpline.

This represents a 1 percent increase year on year from 2022.

A Home Office spokesperson said:

“We are committed to ending all forms of ‘honour’ based abuse. We have taken significant action to tackle this crime, such as introducing a forced marriage offence, providing funding for the national ‘honour’ based abuse helpline, and giving support for victims.

“It is crucial that professionals recognise and understand these crimes, which is why we have a clear non-statutory definition of 'honour' based abuse, which we are constantly keeping under review.”