cover Critical praise for this book This marvellous collection of essays is an important contribution to our collective understanding of the range of violence, mainly against women, that goes under the shorthand of ‘honour crimes’. Like many such terms, it silences and conceals structures of domination, of violence and sexual regulation as much as it reveals the kind of defences that patriarchy summons to its aid. The contributors are passionate and analytical, legally informed and sensitive to the dangers of culturalist and Eurocentric discourses. This book must find its way to the shelves of every concerned lawyer, activist and citizen. Nandini Sundar, Professor of Sociology, Delhi University An extremely timely and insightful book! The collection of essays in this volume will deepen our understanding of the many faces of violence against women. By challenging the invocation to justify crimes committed in the name of honour, the authors vocalise the silent but brave resistance of women worldwide whose lives are encroached upon with claims of dishonour. Combined efforts of activists, academics and women in their everyday lives in countering such social myths will amass in relocating the shame and dishonour from the victim to the perpetrators where they belong. Yakin Ertürk, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women ‘Honour crimes’ are in fact among the most dishonourable of crimes involving the killing of others. While clearly condemning these outrageous practices, this book brings very welcome analytical balance, nuance and sophistication to the task of understanding and seeking to combat such killings. It is by far the best recent work on the issue and is indispensable reading. Professor Philip Alston, Director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, New York University School of Law This urgently needed volume provides invaluable insight on how we should understand the concept of ‘honour crimes’ as it impacts predominantly on women and girl children in different contexts throughout the world. The volume helps to debunk the view that ‘honour crimes’ are a ‘Muslim’ phenomenon, that they are separate from the issue of violence against women, and that the struggle for women’s human rights is somehow ‘alien’ to non- Western or minority communities. Above all it offers an opportunity to develop strategies of resistance in the light of shared knowledge. Thoughtful and thought-provoking, the volume is an indispensable tool for anyone seriously committed to eradicating violence against women in all communities. Pragna Patel, Southall Black Sisters This is an excellent contribution to debates about ‘crimes of honour’, violence against women, and the politics of culture. Setting new standards for collaborative work between activists and academics, it is a major resource not only for those working in the field of legal studies, but also for social scientists and policymakers. Professor Annelies Moors, ISIM chair, University of Amsterdam ‘HONOUR’ Crimes, paradigms and violence against women EDITED BY LYNN WELCHMAN AND SARA HOSSAIN SPINIFEX PRESS Victoria ZED BOOKS London & New York ‘Honour’ was first published in  by Zed Books Ltd,  Cynthia Street, London  , , and Room ,  Fifth Avenue, New York,  ,  www.zedbooks.co.uk Published in Australia and New Zealand by Spinifex Press,  Queensberry Street, North Melbourne, Victoria  Australia www.spinifexpress.com.au Editorial copyright © Lynn Welchman and Sara Hossain  Copyright © individual contributors  The rights of the contributors to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,  Designed and typeset in Monotype Bembo by Illuminati, Grosmont www.illuminatibooks.co.uk Cover designed by Andrew Corbett Printed and bound in the EU by Biddles Ltd www.biddles.co.uk Distributed in the  exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St Martin’s Press, ,  Fifth Avenue, New York,   All rights reserved A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available      (Hb)      (Pb) Spinifex :     Contents Acknowledgements viii Preface: Violence against women and ‘crimes of honour’ xi RADHIKA COOMARASWAMY Introduction: ‘Honour’, rights and wrongs 1 LYNN WELCHMAN AND SARA HOSSAIN 1 United Nations approaches to ‘crimes of honour’ 22 JANE CONNORS 2 ‘Crimes of honour’, value and meaning 42 PURNA SEN 3 The role of ‘community discourse’ in combating ‘crimes of honour’: preliminary assessment and prospects 64 ABDULLAHI AHMED AN-NA`IM 4 ‘Honour killings’ and the law in Pakistan 78 SOHAIL AKBAR WARRAICH 5 Murders of women in Lebanon: ‘crimes of honour’ between reality and the law 111 DANIELLE HOYEK, RAFIF RIDA SIDAWI AND AMIRA ABOU MRAD 6 ‘Crimes of honour’ as violence against women in Egypt 137 CENTRE FOR EGYPTIAN WOMEN’S LEGAL ASSISTANCE 7 Researching women’s victimisation in Palestine: a socio-legal analysis 160 NADERA SHALHOUB-KEVORKIAN 8 Culture, national minority and the state: working against the ‘crime of family honour’ within the Palestinian community in Israel 181 AIDA TOUMA-SLIMAN 9 Changing the rules? Developments on ‘crimes of honour’ in Jordan 199 REEM ABU HASSAN AND LYNN WELCHMAN 10 Honour-based violence among the Kurds: the case of Iraqi Kurdistan 209 NAZAND BEGIKHANI 11 ‘Crimes of honour’ in the Italian Penal Code: an analysis of history and reform 230 MARIA GABRIELLA BETTIGA-BOUKERBOUT 12 The ‘legitimate defence of honour’, or murder with impunity? A critical study of legislation and case law in Latin America 245 SILVIA PIMENTEL, VALÉRIA PANDJIARJIAN AND JULIANA BELLOQUE 13 ‘There is no “honour” in domestic violence, only shame!’ Women’s struggles against ‘honour’ crimes in the UK 263 HANNANA SIDDIQUI 14 Of consent and contradiction: forced marriages in Bangladesh 282 DINA M. SIDDIQI 15 From fathers to husbands: of love, death and marriage in North India 308 UMA CHAKRAVARTI 16 Tackling forced marriages in the Nordic countries: between women’s rights and immigration control 332 ANJA BREDAL References 354 About the contributors 370 Index 375 Acknowledgements Many people have been involved in the five-year process of the CIMEL/ INTERIGHTS Project on ‘Strategies to Address Crimes of Honour’ which has culminated in this publication. First, we would like to thank all the individual authors named in this book, for their engagement in a collective process of exchanging ideas and documenting experiences and critical reflections, for their patience with our editing processes, and for their friendship. We would also like to thank all those named in individual chapters as having contributed to the research, and those working on the ground in organisations across the world whose activities formed the basis of the research papers or influenced our thinking, including the Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives, Ain-o-Salish Kendra, Centre for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance (CEWLA), Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women’s Rights (CLADEM), Kurdish Women against Honour Killings, Shirkat Gah, Southall Black Sisters, Women Against Violence and al-Badeel (working in the Palestinian community in Israel), Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC), Women for Women’s Human Rights, Lebanese Council to Resist Violence Against Women, the National Campaign to Eliminate So-called ‘Crimes of Honour’ in Jordan, the New Woman Research Centre and Nafisa Ibn, the Association Marocaine pour les Droits des Femmes and Centre Fama pour l’Orientation Juridique sur les Droits des Femmes. Many people helped us through formal and informal discussions to gain further and valuable insights into the range of issues raised in this work and introduced us to new resources and information, including in particular Angelika Pathak, Javiera Rizvi, Gita Sahgal and Purna Sen. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix All of those who contributed to the project over the years, including those at INTERIGHTS and at SOAS who have helped to administer it, require particular thanks, especially Maureen Gaskin. We take this opportunity to credit the dozens of volunteers who have helped the project in different ways, including SOAS students and others working on the Annotated Bibliography, the Directory of Initiatives and the International Legal Materials, and who are acknowledged individually in those documents. The project was supported by the Ford Foundation’s Peace and Social Justice Programme in New York, through the good efforts and enthusiasm of Mahnaz Ispahani, then a programme officer. For subsequent years we owe thanks also to Fateh Azzam and most recently to Emma Playfair of the Ford Foundation’s Middle East and North Africa Programme in Cairo, for continuing to support the project and to be engaged discussants in our work. Thanks are also due to Denise Dora of the Ford Foundation Brazil and to Aubrey McCutcheon, then of the Ford Foundation India, for the resources for exploring research and advocacy in Brazil and India, which are reflected in this volume. Anna Hardman of Zed Books worked hard with us to get this publication out on schedule, and we thank her for her patience, support and flexibility. On a personal level, Lynn’s thanks go to Akram al-Khatib, for his love and for being everything that he is; to Elsie and Geoff Knights; and to friends including Laila Asser, Randa Alami, Urmi Shah, Aida Touma, Purna Sen, Emma Playfair and Anne Fitzgerald; and to Sara for her friendship and humour, for shared delights and despairs, and for teaching me so much. Sara’s go to David Bergman for being there (and being with Laleh) and to Hameeda and Kamal Hossain; to Gita Sahgal, Shohini Ghosh, Faustina Pereira, Beena Sarwar and Cassandra Balchin for conversations across the years, and lastly (and mostly) to Lynn and to Emma Playfair for being such good friends and mentors, for their insistence on building truly collaborative and transnational human rights initiatives, and never losing sight of political context at every level. Finally, we would like to draw attention to the amazing input into the project from the women who worked as researchers on the project down the years. These include Samia Bano, who started it all off, and whose activist and intellectual critique of multiculturalism reinforced our approach to the work. Fouzia Khan was a bedrock through the middle years of the project; and the omnicompetence and enthusiasm of Moni Shrestha kept us all on track. Enormous gratitude is due in particular to Sanchita Hosali, whose timely arrival in the final phase of the Project, critical steering of and contribution to this publication, and ability to juggle research, writing and project organisation, ensured that there was method in the midst of the madness and finally a publication! We thank also Floriane Begasse and Joyce Song for helping the project on its way. Lynn Welchman and Sara Hossain