Victims of honour-based violence are being let down by the Welsh justice system because police and prosecutors do not understand the “shame culture” in Muslim communities, an expert has claimed.
Shahien Taj, the executive director of the Henna Foundation, said the legal system in Wales is repeatedly failing victims of child abuse, rape and domestic violence.
And she said compared to England, those involved in the justice system in Wales are not using the guidance available to them and are unable to recognise cases where honour based violence (HBV) may be present.
Mrs Taj, who has been awarded an MBE for her work with the Cardiff-based charity, said victims of HBV were given inadequate help in the courts but it is not clear whether the failings lie with Welsh police or with the Crown Prosecution Service, Wales (CPS Wales).
Describing the service being offered to victims of HBV she said: “It’s like being diagnosed with cancer and you know there’s a treatment but you’re given something for tuberculosis.”
Yet Chief Inspector Roger Whitcombe, of South Wales Police’s Justice and Partnerships department, insists the nation’s largest force is doing its best to help HBV victims and has recently undertaken a “significant programme for change” in order to do so.
Meanwhile Siobhan Blake, Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS Wales, said it worked hard at ensuring HBV issues are dealt with in a “professional and sympathetic manner” but that it recognised more work needed to be done.
Mrs Taj, who has acted as an expert witness in several major HBV cases in both Wales and England, said Welsh Muslims abused by someone in their community rarely come forward to complain to the authorities because of the complex shame culture they are part of.
Welsh muslims, she said, often put pressure on close friends and family members to retract complaints of abuse because they fear the shame it would bring on them.
And she said when cases do proceed to court but fail to achieve a conviction, it is often the complainant who is shunned by those around them for disgracing the community – making it vital that those who do wish to pursue complaints are given the best support possible.
Mrs Taj said the failings of the Welsh justice system were made worse by the fact police and prosecutors in England seem to be capable of identifying instances of HBV more regularly and are better at supporting victims in the courts.
“The clients we have in England are getting a better deal compared to the ones in Wales,” she said.
“I don’t know who is at fault all I can tell you is that from our organisation’s perspective our clients that we’ve supported in England have had a better deal than the ones here in Wales.”
She added: “For me it’s a disappointment because I’m telling our clients in Wales the same as I’m telling the ones in England and then when they go through the system and are let down they say what’s the point?
“We may have well not bothered.”
Mrs Taj called for the guidance provided to support police and prosecutors to be better implemented.
“We know there’s really good guidance out there and we don’t just want to see it applied in certain cases, we want this guidance applied across the board, we want to see it happening in Wales, it should be happening in Wales.”
“Surely it’s not that hard?”
“If it wasn’t for our experience in case work in England we wouldn’t be able to encourage victims here. We’ve said to victims you’ve got a strong case and this is why you’ve got a strong case...but then when things don’t happen I feel like I have let them down, I feel the courts have let them down.
She added: “Our business here is to protect people and encourage them to go down the criminal justice system if that’s what their case allows and they should get every single element of support to make sure that happens.
“It’s like being diagnosed with cancer and you know there’s a treatment but you’re given something for tuberculosis.”
She conceded identifying HBV was a difficult skill.
“The victim isn’t going to say ‘oh by the way I’m a victim of HBV’ it doesn’t work that way. You have to ask specific questions because they [victims] don’t see it like that.
“How many professionals are in a position to identify whether this family comes from a shame culture?
“The whole shame culture is so vast and complex every case is different so that’s why it’s always important when you’ve got an incident of domestic violence to look at the case laterally – don’t just look at him and her, look at what happens around the victims.”
Chief Insp Whitcombe said: “South Wales Police has undertaken a significant programme for change which has created a platform for continuous improvement of service provision based on demand and in order to achieve the force vision of being the best at understanding and responding to the needs of the communities of South Wales.
“To accomplish this, the force considered how best to utilise officers with expertise in dealing with forced marriage and honour based violence cases.
“Changes have been implemented resulting in specialist officers being deployed to BCUs [Basic Command Unit] to work and be managed locally, in the heart of the communities of South Wales. “
He added the force is in the process of developing a larger number of locally based, specialist officers capable of dealing with HBV cases.
Ms Blake said the CPS Wales trained specialists capable of dealing with HBV crimes while it had legal guidance in place aimed at directing prosecutors in how to handle these cases.
Yet she added: “It is true to say that the number of cases we have seen so far in Wales is small compared to some parts of England. All of us in the criminal justice system need to understand the reasons for that and to encourage victims to come forward and report crimes if they can.
“For some, this may be easier to do through third-party advocate organisations rather than directly to the police – and we must make sure that victims are aware that those avenues are open to them.
“We still have much to do, but we have already taken important steps in making sure the criminal justice system is able to properly support victims of these terrible offences.”