In September 2003 seventeen year old Shafilea Ahmed was about to leave home to spend an evening with friends when an argument broke out with her parents over what she was wearing. Shortly after she was dead, suffocated with a plastic bag.
Like so many second or third generation British Pakistani girls, Shafilea had white friends, wanted to wear western clothes, and had ambitions to become a lawyer. Instead, she drank bleach as a cry for help when her parents tried to marry her to a cousin in Pakistan. Iftikhar and Farzana Ahmed, both facing long stretches in prison for murder, have now become the latest in a growing number of Europeans accused and convicted of what have become known as “honour killings”.
In 2010 the UK saw a 47% rise in honour-related crimes, and officials working with the police believe the figure to be much higher.
Figures are similar in Austria and Germany, with the Scandinavian countries now adapting their tactics to the new phenomenon.
These countries are not only taking action to face up to a growing national threat, they are leading the list of countries to sign up to the Council of Europe’s Convention on preventing and combating violence against women, the first international treaty that makes it possible for countries to work together to stop crimes against women, including forced marriage and honour crimes.
It is tempting to ascribe a religious justification to honour killings, especially in a climate where Islam is all too easily confounded with terrorism and violence in the popular imagination.
That assumption is wrong. No religious text legitimises honour killing, and religious leaders across all denominations condemn it. The practice is thought to pre-date both Islam and Christianity, and was limited to certain areas of Europe, an ugly side effect of specific cultural codes.
As society has opened and borders become less of a barrier, it has spread, and not just amongst communities coming from outside Europe: a UK judge recently convicted a white couple for assaulting their daughter for bringing “shame” on the family because she had a black boyfriend.
Sad as it is to see the rash of cases coming before European courts, it is at least a sign that society is waking up to the truth behind “honour”. False sensitivities about race and religion should not stand in the way of us calling a crime a crime. Yet simply relying on convictions isn’t enough to put a stop to behaviours that come from a misguided deference to tradition.
Putting an end to honour killing means altering attitudes, something which is notoriously difficult even with “benign” habits, such as over-eating or smoking. Change can only be effective if codes are re-cast; detaching the “honour” from the killing, and showing it in its true light – an act of irrational violence against victims who are in the vast majority young and female.