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Convictions for honour crimes including FGM, rape and forced marriage plummet amid national police crackdown
Convictions for so-called honour crimes perpetrated against women have plummeted in the past five years, The Independent can reveal, amid a nationwide crackdown aimed at bringing those responsible to justice.The offences include coercive control, forced marriage and subsequent repeated rape, female genital mutilation (FGM), assault, threats to kill, attempted murder and even murder itself.Figures from the Crown Prosecution Service show that successful prosecutions for crimes of honour-based abuse fell from 123 in 2013-14 to just 71 in 2017-18.In an acknowledgement of the problem, a national campaign was launched this week – at the start of the summer school holidays – that saw police officers descend on airports across Britain to question families travelling to and from countries where the practices are prevalent.Challenged at a press briefing in London over the low number of prosecutions for forced marriage and FGM, officers said that victims might fear coming forward, be unaware they were victims of a crime or were unwilling to report members of their families.Det Sgt Trudy Gittins, from West Midlands Police, said honour-based beliefs were deeply ingrained.“You’ve still got deeply embedded cultures in the third generation, and people are still migrating who bring these beliefs with them,“ she told The Independent."But the indication at the moment is more people are reporting these crimes."The organisation that runs the UK’s largest helpline for honour-based abuse saw a 35 per cent increase in calls to their helpline last year, with a total of 13,124 people getting in touch. Natasha Rattu, the director of Karma Nirvana, a national charity that supports abuse victims, described honour-based abuse as an incident or crime that has taken place against a person because their family or community believe they have brought shame or dishonour. She cited the example of a family physically assaulting a victim who had been in a relationship which they disapproved of and then forcing them into a marriage with someone they did approve of, noting that this involved both punishment and an attempt to restore honour. The campaigner said: “Thousands of crimes of honour-based crimes are going undetected and therefore unpunished. Perpetrators are not being held to account. The fall in prosecutions is massively concerning given more victims than ever are coming forward. It sends a message to communities that you can almost get away with it.”Police said that this week's operation, codenamed Limelight, aimed to raise awareness as well as spotting criminal behaviour and gathering intelligence.Ms Rattu, who has been involved in the scheme taking place at train stations, airports and seaports, hailed it as a brilliant and innovative initiative but argued that the issue of falling levels of charging, prosecutions and convictions nevertheless remained a pressing and deep-rooted problem.She said the falling number of honour abuse cases that the police were flagging to the CPS could be linked to their lack of awareness of the issue. Karma Nirvana had trained 23 police forces across England and Wales“There is a real training gap," she said. "There is also a lack of confidence to address the issue. Professionals sometimes worry about being seen as culturally insensitive or racist."We see cases which are not honour-based abuse and they have flagged it as that. Honour-based abuse victims are also not viewed as having equal rights to other British citizens. These issues happen in minority communities and minority communities often get left behind."Honour-based abuse is not being prioritised. Victims do not feel they can trust agencies and think agencies are colluding with the perpetrators.”Ms Rattu criticised the College of Policing’s decision to scrap a question relating to honour-based violence from a pilot scheme that saw officers ask victims to identify the risks they faced.The campaigner said: “It will make it more difficult for frontline officers on the ground to identify honour-based abuse if this question is now excluded. Prosecutions could fall even further without it. We have raised our concerns with the Home Office and the National Police Chiefs' Council.”She said victims often did not trust authorities enough to report honour abuse to them, and noted that many social officers were unaware that the government’s Forced Marriage Unit’s guidance was not to mediate in cases of forced marriage. She said they sometimes informed familyies that their daughter had made a disclosure and were then duped by “Oscar-winning performances” from family members. Ms Rattu, who called for the government to do more to tackle honour-based abuse, said the fall in convictions could be linked to prosecutors not understanding honour-based abuse thoroughly enough to secure them.In most honour-based abuse cases there were multiple perpetrators from the immediate family, sometimes the extended family and occasionally even the wider community. Pragna Patel, director of Southall Black Sisters, argued that the fall in cases being handed to the CPS could be the result of cuts to policing and them having to divert resources elsewhere. She warned that the fall in convictions was putting women’s lives at risk and contributing to a culture of impunity.“It is possibly the most vulnerable women being left at risk because they are more likely to face reprisal due to police inaction,” she said. “They have more to lose. Once they have decided to report, they are at risk of being ostracised, isolated, vilified and perhaps subjected to greater threats as they have transgressed community norms. Perpetrators can use the fact that nothing will be done as a weapon to control women more.”Laws making it illegal to force someone into marriage in England and Wales were implemented in 2014. Anyone found guilty of doing so can be imprisoned for up to seven years.In 2018, there were three defendants convicted in two separate cases for the specific offence of forced marriage – the first in England. In the first successful prosecution, a mother was imprisoned for forcing her daughter to marry an older relative in Pakistan who had raped her when she was 13. The second prosecution involved a couple who tricked their 18-year-old daughter into travelling to Bangladesh to make her marry her first cousin, bear his child and help him to get a British visa. The first conviction for FGM took place earlier this year.Yasmin Khan, director of The Halo Project, argued that the criminalisation of forced marriage and the build-up to it led to more prosecutions and the decline since then was due to the issue being put on the backburner.The campaigner, whose national charity supports victims of honour-based abuse, said the decline in prosecutions and convictions stemmed from a lack of awareness about the issue within both the police and the judicial system. “There is a total lack of awareness among public bodies – the police, local council, health, education, and social services,” she said. “They do not know what signs to look out for and are not asking the right questions. Honour-based abuse causes long-lasting trauma and psychological impacts. We need to do all we can to help victims who are suffering sometimes years and years of abuse."We need to break the cycle so they don’t suffer in silence. There are serial offenders of honour-based abuse who have one victim after another in that family.”A spokesperson for the CPS said: “Honour-based abuse is an incredibly complex crime and we know victims need extra support to help us successfully bring cases to court.“We have agreed a joint protocol with the police to make sure investigative teams are using best practice and victims feel supported and protected.We can only charge cases that have been referred to us by police but where our legal test is met, we will not hesitate to prosecute.”
Forced marriage is an awful crime, and Operation Limelight – the unprecedented fightback led this week in airports by the police and border force in the peak Summer holiday period – is long overdue. There is no excuse for this evil that destroys the lives of thousands of young Brits each year.
Forced marriage a huge problem that disproportionately affects children. According to the government’s Forced Marriage Unit, one third of victims are under 18. Men are not exempt either, accounting for a quarter of victims of forced marriage. This crime is becoming more common (or at least more commonly reported), with UK cases increasing by a fifth since 2011.
Though Operation Limelight is not enough. To eliminate forced marriage, we will have to understand what really drives these parents to abuse their own children.
For many of parents, forced marriage is a last resort when they fear their child won't find a spouse in the UK. I should know, because it’s what almost happened to me. As I grew older and remained single, my mother started to pressure me into "doing the right thing" and marrying a family friend or distant relative in Pakistan. Some of my friends in similar situations caved in, or even convinced themselves that marrying someone they didn’t love was the best course of action.
My solution was different: I started a Muslim matrimonial site and within months I met my wife online. If more young Brits had that route open to them, we would hugely reduce the problem.
But not everyone is so fortunate.
The first step in understanding forced marriage is to clearly know what it isn’t. It definitely is not arranged marriage, where friends, family, work colleagues or even strangers act as matchmakers for those looking for a partner. It is precisely the lack of these extended social networks – a kind of human matchmaking algorithm – that has motivated some conservative parents to put undue pressure on their children to get married.
This can range from subtle social pressure, to outright coercion or, in extreme cases, kidnapping.
It is also important that we mention Islam. Since the government’s announcement of Operation Limelight yesterday, some far-right outlets have sought to tie the religion to the cultural practices of some of its adherents. This neglects the fact that where forced marriage is a problem. For example, in South Asia and parts of Africa, forced marriage is widespread among adherents of different faiths.
Contrary to some popular perceptions, Islam has been explicitly opposed to forced marriage for its entire 1400 year history. Mutual consent is a condition of nikah, an Islamic marriage contract, and the bride is free to stipulate any conditions she sees fit in terms of her future married life.
At the same time, it is undoubtedly true that many of the Brits committing this crime are Muslims, and may even invoke religious inspiration or justification for their actions. A majority of British victims are in families that hail from Pakistan or Bangladesh – countries that are almost entirely Muslim.
As Islam spread around the world, its ethical guidelines – like consent to marriage – wrestled with a range of cultural practices. Most of the time, regressive cultural norms were brought into line with the faith, but sometimes they survived in spite of clear Islamic principles.
So if it isn’t religion that is driving British parents to forced marriage, what is?
Culturally conservative parents in particular are keen for their children to maintain tradition, and fear their children will rebel against their upbringing by embracing the casual dating that many of their peers engage in throughout adolescence and beyond.
There needs to be a third way between overly controlled and hyper-traditional matchmaking on the one hand, and casual dating on the other. Both of which have little to offer many Brits. Until we fully develop that, the tragic consequences of forced relationships will continue to be a problem for us all - in this country, and abroad.
Only through having honest conversations, and realising that there are as many ways to find love as there are people, will we make things better for our children.
Adeem Younis is a Muslim relationship expert and founder of SingleMuslim.com