A new aspect of honour violence has emerged in Finland: for the first time, Finnish women are seeking refuge from in-laws and relatives angered over perceived indecent behaviour.
Honour violence is relatively rare in Finland, but support centres have been set up to help women from immigrant families who become victims of their relatives’ wrath. For the first time, they’re now seeing Finnish women fleeing the threat of honour violence.
“I’m afraid of my ex-husband, his brother and all his relatives,” one woman told YLE’s current events programme Ajankohtainen Kakkonen. She married a foreign man who believes that the family has the right to control its women’s behaviour, and take punitive action to correct perceived digressions.
“They’ve threatened to kidnap my children, and my husband has repeatedly threatened to kill me. He says nobody can stop them, that horrible things happen, and he doesn’t even have to do them himself, that revenge will come from the clan,” adds the woman.
Immigrant Women’s Safe Houses Shelter Finns
The Multicultural Women’s Association Monika, which runs a safehouse for immigrant women and their children, says that more and more Finnish women are turning to them when Finnish authorities fail to understand the threat of honour violence.
“You can have 200 people involved in honour-related violence, that is, the entire extended family. And not just the family in Finland, but relatives abroad and back in the home country. In general, our laws need to understand much better this type of group threat,” says Nasima Razmyar, project manager at Monika.
YLE’s current affairs programme Ajankohtainen Kakkonen reports that some Finnish women who have married into families where honour violence is an accepted part of the culture find themselves with few places to turn.
“For example, the woman’s mother might call us, or another family member or friend who’s worried. They have questions about the culture and want to know what’s normal,” says Razmyar.
One problem is that Finnish authorities in social services and on the police force treat honour violence just like any other case of domestic violence. They don’t take into account the fact that instead of a dispute between two individuals, honour violence pits a single woman against the wrath of a large group of people.