IKWRO

Conference 1 December 2006

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‘Murders in the name of so-called honour’ are murders within the framework of collective family structures, in which predominantly women are killed for actual or perceived immoral behaviour, which is deemed to have breached the honour codes of a household or community, causing shame.

The underlying purpose of “honour crimes” is to maintain men’s power in families and communities by denying women basic—and internationally recognized—rights to make autonomous decisions about issues such as marriage, divorce, and whether and with whom to have sex, in order to control female sexuality and reproductive function.

There are at least twelve murders in the name of ‘honour’ every year in Britain.

{mosimage}IKWRO’s fourth annual conference on honour killing was held at the Amnesty International Human Rights Centre and was attended by 250 people, including many representatives from the police, social services and the public sector. It was a full day, with presentations from activists and professionals and some accounts of the reality of honour crime from the perspective of the victims.

Introduction: Rana Husseini

{mosimage}Rana Husseini is a journalist with the Jordan Times, and an activist for women’s rights in general and against ‘honour’ crime in particular. Around 25% of murders committed in Jordan are motivated in the name of ‘honour’ where the judicial system offers reduced penalties for these crimes. She has received the Ida B Wells Award (amongst many others) for her courage in confronting and exposing these crimes. Her book, ‘In the Name of Honour’ will be published by OneWorld Publications . Find more information about Rana Husseini on her website.

Ms Husseini told the audience that when she first came to Britain to talk about ‘honour’ crime in the 80s she got very little response. But now, thanks to the work of NGOs like IKWRO and the co-operation between the police and such NGOs there has been a real change in attitudes. She said that back in the 80s, people thought that campaigners against ‘honour’ crime were wasting their time, it was a taboo subject. But things are changing. The media has a responsibility to stand up for the oppressed and to broadcast the work of organizations that work for the victims of domestic violence, ‘honour’ crime and forced marriage.

So-called honour crimes and the police: Commander Steve Allen

{mosimage}Steve Allen is the head of the Directorate of Violent Crime for the London Metropolitan Police

Before Commander Allen came to work in Bristol, he had never heard of 'honour' crime and didn't know that young women were forced into marriages. The question of 'honour' crime is not just a question of women's rights, but a question of human rights, that touches all parts of society. The police must give people faced with the threat of 'honour' crime the opportunity to live their lives. In some parts of the country, practise is very good on this issue, but in others, problems remain. The challenge is to make this issue a fundamental issue, like in September when we held a seminar with survivors. Survivor's experiences have allowed the police to change their thinking. The police must:

• Listen to survivors and create a national network on the issue
• Establish risk management strategies; move the polices attitude from one of detecting murders to preventing them. This requires training to be provided across the country and to add 'honour' crime to our training on domestic violence.
• Judicial options cannot solve this problem alone: social change is necessary.

The goal is to have NO 'honour' killings. {mospagebreak}

Violence in the name of 'honour' and the protection of survivors: Diana Nammi 

{mosimage}Diana Nammi is an Iranian Kurd, who was politically active against both the Shah and the repressive Islamist regime that followed the Revolution. In 2002 she founded IKWRO and in 2003 she started the International Campaign Against Honour Killings .

Ms Nammi outlined the concept of 'honour', also known as 'sharaf' and 'namus', and cited the cases of many notorious murders which have occurred in Britain: Heshu Yunes, Sahjdar Bibi, Rukshana Naz, Arash Ghorbani-Zarin and also mentioned the case of Banaz Mahmoud Babakir Agha, whose family are awaiting trial, suspected of her murder. 

Ms Nammi gave a full and extensive presentation on how to recognise the danger signs and the appropriate protection of potential victims of honour crime. The substance of Ms Nammi's practical advice was provided on handouts, which can also be downloaded here . Ms Nammi's practical proposals revolve around a three point plan: BE AWARE, BE READY, BELEIVE, focusing on the need for training, preparation and planning, and the sensitive treatment of potential victims. Her recommendations for national policy include:

• Police to perform full risk assessments
• National protection scheme including the provision of new identities and histories
• National advisory group for 'honour' related crime
• Council to provide secure housing for potential victims nationwide
• Mandatory training in 'honour' related crime for all service providers
• Dedicated 'honour' related crime team/officer in each police force and all London boroughs
• Long term secured resources for all organisations providing support to survivors and help to potential victims
• Abolition of 'no recourse to public funding' regulations for victims of violence

Ms Nammi was particularly passionate about the difficult situation of women with 'no recourse to public funding' and the predicament where they are forced to remain in abusive relationships or face homelessness or deportation because the British state refuses to help them. These women, who have often come to the UK on a marriage visa or whose asylum cases have been closed; some of them are forced into abusive relationships or prostitution in order to survive. All agencies trying to help women in this situation are finding the regulations restricting funding very difficult. The British Government has a moral duty to extend its support to these women, the most vulnerable in society, and to review all asylum cases based in claims of domestic and 'honour'-related violence.{mospagebreak}

A survivor's story: 'Jack Briggs'

{mosimage}'Jack Briggs' and his wife 'Zena' have spent 13 years running away from 'Zena's' family and bounty hunters hired by them. Their book Runaways (currently out of print) details the history of those 13 years and the difficulties they encountered in finding safety. 'Jack' and 'Zena's' experience has helped the police build their current strategy for the protection of potential victims of honour crime. It was this book that inspired Ann Cryer, MP for Keighley to establish the first working group for ethnic minority women. 'Jack' has performed many lectures to raise the awareness of 'honour' crime in the UK.

The story of the 'Briggs' begins when 'Zena's' family proposed to force her into marriage with a relative. 'Zena' made her escape and she and Jack eloped together. 'Zena's' family were outraged. They started a lengthy campaign of threats, intimidation and emotional blackmail to end their relationship, including harassing 'Jack's' sister's children, and his mother who was gravely ill with cancer. 'Jack' also details the strengths and weaknesses of the procedures set in place to protect the couple. 

From the Observer :

One night in January 1993, Zena Chaudhuri tore up the sheets from her bed and tied them together. Using them as a rope, she lowered bags from her bedroom window at the top of her house to the street below. Then she crept down the stairs and out of the front door.

Zena had met Jack Briggs the previous summer, in the Yorkshire town where they both lived. They took to accompanying the neighbourhood children, including their various nephews and nieces, to the park. Their friendship developed into a relationship, although Zena always knew that she was intended for Bilal, a relative in Pakistan. She had been taken to meet him when she was 13 and had found him uncouth, domineering and spiteful. Her sister Miriam was already married to his brother, who beat her and taunted Zena that once she was married, too, he and Bilal would 'sort her out'.

Recently, Zena's passport had gone missing from her bedroom. She believed it was only a matter of time before she was somehow got to the airport and on to a plane. Perhaps she would be told she had to visit a sick relative. (Her mother was in Pakistan already, caring for her grandmother.) Once in Kashmir, she would be forced to marry Bilal. 'They came from a remote region,' Jack says. 'She would have had to walk the equivalent of London to Birmingham to get to a phone.'

Faced with what she anticipated would be 'a life of lovelessness and rows and drudgery stretching out for ever,' Zena ran away. She had almost no idea of what she was letting herself in for: she took 20 pairs of shoes and a French manicure set with 30 nail varnishes. She would ditch all of it, except for two pairs of shoes, within a couple of days.

Zena phoned her family immediately to let them know she was safe. Her brother Karim, who'd played football with Jack and counted himself a friend, told the couple the family had already hired a bounty hunter. Karim was selling his precious cars to pay the costs of tracing and killing them. 'I'm going to make it my life's mission to find you,' he said. 'You're both going to end up in bin liners.'

Miriam claimed Zena's disappearance had given her father a heart attack. He was in hospital and might die; she had to come back. Jack and Zena rang the hospitals; it wasn't true. Meanwhile, three men smashed the windows of Jack's mother's house, broke down the door, pushed his mother (who had cancer) up against the wall and said: 'We want to introduce you to the man who's going to murder your son.' Someone telephoned Jack's sister and told her they were going to 'chop up' her children.

Jack and Zena ended up in Grimsby, where someone at the DSS leaked their whereabouts; three men turned up at the office claiming to be Zena's brothers and demanding to know her address. Luckily, someone alerted the couple before they could be found. They went to the police, who told them a £9,000 theft charge had been laid by her family against Zena; she would have to return to Yorkshire to answer questions. She was driven back and spent the night in a police cell before being released.

Zena and Jack were put on the national sensitive register for social security and stayed on the move: Huddersfield, Cleethorpes, Grimsby, Lincoln, Sandown (where they married), Bournemouth, Torquay... they didn't linger anywhere. They stayed in B&Bs, buying a 4lb bag of oven chips for £1.29 at the beginning of the week and building meals around it - a tin of spaghetti one night, a tin of stewed steak the next.

Today, the man who calls himself Jack Briggs (which is not the name he uses in his private life, obviously) meets me at a London hotel. 'Do you mind,' he asks as I sit down, 'if I sit there? I can see the door then.' Jack and Zena Briggs are still on the run. They have moved 30 times since 1992 and have no idea if they are still in danger (bounty hunters are usually paid on completion) or, if so, in what form it might come. 'At first, if an Asian guy looked at me twice I was anxious, but now I know that's not how it works. It could easily be a white Christian with the knife or the gun. We are dealing with intelligent, resourceful people, who fully believe what they are doing is justified.'

Zena and Jack were eventually given new identities: new passports, national insurance numbers and medical cards. But these came without educational histories, work backgrounds or character references and, if they'd used their own, they could have been traced. In practice, this meant it was virtually impossible for Jack to get work. (Zena does now have a part-time job.) 'I am able to work and I want to,' Jack says. 'I think it's everyone's legal and civil right to work. We should have been a third of the way through a mortgage by now, instead of which we have rent arrears. Zena doesn't even have a winter coat.'

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Intermission

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The Lilith Project awarded their 'Rising Star' award for best new voluntary organisation to IKWRO for their work to support Farsi, Kurdish and Arabic speaking women, girls and men.

Announcement: Houzan Mahmoud

Houzan Mahmoud of the Organisation for Women's Freedom in Iraq presented a book in Kurdish detailing 5,000 'honour' killings and 'honour'-related suicides which have taken place in Iraqi Kurdistan. Ms Mahmoud called for support for women's rights organisations opposing repressive movements in Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran. She is hoping to publish a translation of this book.

Violence in the name of 'honour' - A victim's story: Jasvinder Sanghera

{mosimage}At 15 years old, Jasvinder Sanghera left her family to escape an arranged marriage and was ostracised by her community and family. Her sister committed suicide at the age of 23, to escape an abusive marriage. In 1994, she created Karma Nirvana. Today she runs shelters for Asian women in Derby, Stoke and Burton. Her book Shame is currently on release.

Ms Sanghera is a survivor of 'honour' crime. Born in Britain, she watched her sisters being forced into marriage one after the other. Feeling the contradiction between her life and what she saw in her school, she resisted, only to find herself imprisoned in the family house. Fleeing, she found that she was labelled as the guilty one by her family and community.

IZZAT

Ms Sanghera comes from a Sikh Indian family, yet the term 'izzat' is known to all south-Asian females. Izzat, or family honour has a strong effect on all women's lives. Strong enough to impel Rukshana Naz's mother to hold her down while her son murdered her. 'Honour' killings are frequent in South Asia and the Middle East, areas where forced marriage are also frequent. The two practises are strongly linked. 

For women, izzat implies:

• living in fear of the close and extended family
• feeling under constant surveillance and control
• living in dependence and solitude
• losing her sense of her self and her rights; becoming an extension of her family or community
• being ashamed, silenced and threatened: whatever occurs, it is always the woman who is responsible, even in the case of rape. It is important to make these women believe it is not thier fault.

Karma Nirvana ran an experimental investigation into the concept of 'izzat'. Upon asking young Asian men in the street, 'What would you do if you found your sister with a boyfriend,' many said, 'I would kill her.' Women separated into three age groups all agreed that 'izzat' was the most important issue in Asian women's lives. Of the two older age categories, all responded that they would choose 'izzat' over their daughters.

For girls and women who flee their families, it is not just an issue of accommodation, but also of being rejected and ostracised by the whole family and community; of losing their identity. There are difficulties in moving from a psychology of dependence to one of independence, and there is constant fear of being caught.

Advice for care:

• Assure confidentiality. It is not enough to say that it is confidential. The client must be able to have faith in the process of confidentiality.
• The issue of 'honour' is also one of links with the community. For that reason, women are worried they may never see their children again if they leave.
• 30% of victims of forced marriage are minors. Schools must pay attention to girls.
• The suicide rate for young Asian women is 2-3 times higher than normal. This is no surprise. Oppression creates depression.
• There is a strong correlation between forced marriage and honour crime. Marriage can be forced to save honour, and women can be murdered for rejecting a forced marriage.
• You must follow the wishes of the girl, even those who will accept a forced marriage rather than make the break from their families.
• When a girl asks for help NEVER speak to her in the prescence of her family
• For girls under 18, seek Child Protection.
• NEVER contact the family. It will result in the girl facing stricter surveillance and even violence
• Address practical issues: how to keep hold of/get back the passport for example
• Maintain DISCREET contact. Check school times and use a password on the phone
• Never underestimate the families desire to kill
• Never reject a girl or send her away. NEVER seek advice from 'community leaders'; they may seem progressive, but may not speak honestly on the taboo subject of honour.
• DO NOT ATTEMPT MEDIATION
• Anonymity is fundamental. Some families hire bounty hunters or assassins to kill their children. You must never discuss them or their whereabouts.

Karma Nirvana accepts around 40 - 50 people in need of support every month, mostly women, but occasionally young men, who can also become victims of forced marriage or honour crime.

Recommendations:

• If possible give survivors the chance to live with members of their own community. Some feel reassured in this environment, which may redress the loss of community and identity they may experience in breaking with their family. On the other hand, some may wish to reject their background in entirety and prefer to share accommodation with people from a completely different background
• Try and find permanent accommodation
• Develop 'friendship networks' for survivors facing isolation
• Campaign against forced marriage and violence against women

Some people don't want to face these questions for fear of being labelled racist. This is moral blindness and must be rejected. When a girl comes looking for help, if she does not recieve immediate help, she may never have another chance.{mospagebreak}

M: A True Story

{mosimage}IKWRO hoped to show footage of an interview filmed with a survivor of honour crime. However, this footage didn't reach us in time to be used. In place of this, a volunteer from IKWRO read a short presentation, including excerpts from the Home Office statement of the survivor to give an insight into the reality of 'honour' killing. M was six years old when she witnessed the murder of her mother, killed by her father. From that day, she had to take care of six children, inlcuding a baby of just 30 days old. Her father served just eight months in prison for the murder, as her uncles accepted 'blood money' on behalf of the family. M was confined to the house by her brutally sadistic father until she escaped with her sisters to an orphanage only to be returned upon the death of her father. She accepted an arranged marriage to escape the violence of ther brothers but it was a loveless relationship. Upon seeking divorce, M was threatened with 'honour' killing and fled Iran for the UK. However, the relatives that helped her escape her brothers were domineering and used her as unpaid labour, controlling every aspect of her life. When she rebelled against their strictures, these relatives also attempted to murder her. With the help of IKWRO, M found safe shelter and made a successful asylum claim on appeal, although she still lives in fear of her family.

Heshu Yunes - A Case Study: Mickey Singh

{mosimage}Mickey Singh presented this piece in the abscence of DI Brent Hyatt, who investigated the murder of 16-year-old Heshu Yunes in 2002. Brent Hyatt has worked for the Metropolitan Police since 1982. He has since forged strong links with the Kurdish community and is in the Metropolitan Police's working group on 'honour' crime.

As the murderer Abdallah Yunes pleaded guilty, a lot of the detective work involved in making the case against him went unheard in court. However, the case presented a departure for UK Police in their understanding of 'honour' crime and many of the procedures currently in place were inspired by the process of this investigation.

{mosimage}Heshu Yunes, aged 16, was murdered by her father in a so-called 'honour' killing. 'Honour' killings are committed by the family for behaviour judged shameful family or the community: running away, wearing sexy clothes, having a boyfriend, being pregnant, having sex, being pregnant, refusing a forced marriage, being raped... Men can also be killed in the name of 'honour', for having a relationship with someone's daughter or sister, for refusing a forced marriage, and for being homosexual. 'Honour' crimes are premeditated, decided by a family council. Sometimes the murder is committed by a professional killer. Most often the murderer is the victim's father, husband, brother, uncle or cousin. Sometimes women play their part in the murder.

When we talk about culture, remember that 40 years ago marital rape was legal. Culture must never be an excuse for inhumanity.

Hesh's family came from Iraqi Kurdistan. She was unknown to social services, she had a part-time job, many friends from all backgrounds, described as intelligent by her teachers. She had been going out with a boy for 9 months.She was a girl most families would be proud of.

Teachers noticed her unhappiness and called her family to discuss their worries. Her friends spoke of a strict and violent father; of her plans to escape. The most dangerous period for forced marriage is the summer holidays. Her family left for Kurdistan over the summer to force Heshu into marriage. She refused and was accused of having a boyfriend, which she denied. They forced her to undergo a virgnity test.

{mosimage}Back in London, she was locked in her room. On the 12th October she called a friend. She was terrified. On that day, she was stabbed to death with 17 wounds. Abdallah Yunes chose a small knife for his crime, using it with such force the blade was broken and bent. It took Heshu 15 minutes to bleed to death.

The father had planned to kill his daughter. The police found indications that he had made an escape plan. A letter from Heshu was also found. Reading like a suicide note, it was in fact a farewell letter for when she ran away. There is a strange similarity between flight and suicide: both are the rejection of the old life.

Investigations revealed how deeply the family were complicit in the murder. Heshu's mother and brother both connived to mislead the police to create an image of a tolerant father when forensic examination showed that Heshu had suffered a lifetime of violent physical abuse. Heshu's mother tried to convince Heshu's best friend and heart-broken boyfriend to lie to police to cover her husband's guilt. Furthermore, there was a degree of community conspiracy to exculpate the murder. Yunes was unemployed and lived on state benefits. However, a surety of many thousands of pounds was raised on his behalf by community members, and a plot was hatched to stage a fake kidnapping to take him to Iraqi Kurdistan and beyond the reach of justice.

What can we do to help potential victims like Heshu?

25% of victims of 'honour' crime are under 18.

You only get one chance to help a woman or girl who is a potential victim of 'honour' crime.

• Evaluate the victim's needs
• Find safe shelter
• Assure confidentiality
• Maintain discreet contact
• NEVER contact the family
• NEVER contact 'community leaders'
• Assess the risks fully: murder, suicide, abduction, imprisonment

The presentation included disturbing crime scene photographs and a heartrending video diary recorded by Heshu herself while on her fateful trip to Kurdistan.

Thanks to the hard work of IKWRO's volunteers and supporters, and the excellent speakers who freely gave up their time to raise awareness of this crucial issue, and all the participants, some of whom travelled a long way to come to the event both nationally and internationally the conference was very successful, recieving a lot of positive feedback from delegates. It was filmed and will be made available on DVD in due course. Please contact us or check this site regularly for its release.

IKWRO hope to hold our next conference in 2007. Please contact us if you are interested in participating.