Violence against Women

Violence against women is perhaps the most shameful human rights violation, and it is perhaps the most pervasive. It knows no boundaries of geography, culture or wealth. As long as it continues, we cannot claim to be making real progress towards equality, development, and peace.’
(UN Secretary General Kofi Annan)

Violence against women (VAW) is not a new phenomenon, nor is it specific to any one part of the world. As the UN declaration (1993) states, “it is a manifestation of the historically unequal power relations between men and women, which have led to domination over and discrimination against women by men…it is the essential and ultimate social mechanism by which women are forced into subordination position”. Violence against women is rooted in the assumption that women are the property of men. This attitude is prevalent across the globe, and is reinforced both by customary practices and, in certain countries, by the legal system itself. And yet, while the global community has increasingly begun to recognise the importance of women’s rights and the need to alleviate the injustices they face, gender-based violence has paradoxically been on the rise in South Asian communities. Women in these communities are the most vulnerable to violations of their rights to life, liberty and security of person.

By analysing the lists of women murdered in the UK over the last ten years in the name of ‘honour’, it becomes clear that some men, and even some women, feel entitled to kill those women they see as having disempowered men by defying male authority.

So-called ‘honour’ killings, just like rape, are a form of terrorism that functions to define gender lines, to express and further define male dominance, and to render all women chronically and profoundly unsafe. Gill (2007) argues that ‘honour’ is used as distorted rationale for violence against women, including their murder, in much of the world. She states that a pattern of family ‘honour killings’ is evident in Latin American and Mediterranean societies, amongst communities in the Middle East and parts of South Asia, and in various communities originating within the Indian sub-continent, including the Sikh community in the UK. She suggests that the “pattern of ‘honour’ crimes does not seem to be confined to any particularly type of society, or to any consistent stratum or religion”(8). The use of ‘honour’  in these contexts is focused both on the control of female behaviour and on the shame that the loss of  such control brings to the woman’s family, within the context of larger community enforcement. The traditional concept of ‘honour killings’ is rooted in the perception that women are the property of male members of the family, and so it is the ‘honour’ of these men that is affected if women - their ‘goods’ - violate cultural codes or social norms, or if they are defiled. 

Strategies to address violence against women in the name of ‘honour’

1. Obtain a genuine commitment to action from all levels of society (i.e., from the state, public support  agencies, the community and the individual), which is required in order to develop preventative and interventional structures designed to end all forms of violence against women.

2.  Ensure that all agencies situate this problem within the wider framework of violence against women (VAW). This is important, because it will then offer an insight into the structural manifestations of such brutal forms of VAW. In recent years the approach to response and intervention has been incoherent, and the understanding of the contexts and consequences of this violence by the criminal justice system has been inconsistent. This is a serious form of discrimination, and a violation of women’s rights, and should not be tolerated under any circumstances.

3.  Guarantee greater acceptance of the testimony of a victim who reports that she has been threatened with an ‘honour’ killing by her family. This requires understanding how women relate to their experiences, how they respond to violence, where they go for help, what happens when they ask for help, and how effective that help is.

4.  Confirm that effective legislation, both national and international, exists to punish all forms of crime committed in the name of ‘honour’, including forced marriage, and guarantees that all reports of violence and/or abuse will be taken seriously, investigated robustly and acted upon promptly, even when family or community leaders attempt to justify these crimes (Gill, 2004).

(Dr. Aisha Gill is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Roehampton University. She is currently the Chair of Newham Asian Women’s Project, a management committee member of Imkaan (a second-tier national VAW charity), member of Liberty’s Project Advisory Group and ‘End Violence Against Women’ group (EVAW). Gill is also author of several journal articles on violence against women in Black and Minority Ethnic and Refugee (BMER) communities in the UK).