A spokesperson from the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) reported that an estimated 17,000 cases of honour-related violence occur in Great Britain annually. The association also stated that figures relating to forced marriages are the "tip of the iceberg". The women and girls who are subjected to forced marriages, kidnappings, sexual assaults, beatings and even murder by relatives determined to uphold "family honour" may be up to 35 times higher than official figures suggest. Children as young as 11 have been sent abroad to be married, which has prompted the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to call on British consular staff in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan to take more action to identify and help British citizens believed to be the victims of forced marriages in recent years. The British Home Office is preparing action to address "honour" crimes by improving the response of police and other agencies and to encourage victims to come forward to receive needed support. New legislation is also being prepared to enable courts to tackle forced marriages.
Commander Steve Allen, head of ACPO's honour-based violence unit, is reported as saying that the actual number of honour victims is "massively unreported". He states that approximately 500 cases are dealt with each year and further adds that "If the generally accepted statistic is that a victim will suffer 35 experiences of domestic violence before they report, then I suspect if you multiplied our reporting by 35 times you may be somewhere near where people's experience is at." He made these comments to the House of Commons last week, following a series of gruesome murders and attacks on British women by their relatives.
The majority of victims of honour violence remain reluctant to come forward due to fear of retribution and perceived lack of community-based support. Young girls have gone missing from school registers and are said to be home-schooled while actually being taken out of the country to be married abroad. Support agencies report bring back at least three girls a week from Islamabad as victims of forced marriage. The British Government's Forced Marriage Unit (FMU) reported handling approximately 400 cases last year – 167 of them leading to young Britons being helped back to the UK to escape unwanted partners overseas. Home Office figures show that 15 per cent of cases involve men and boys.
Almost all victims of the most extreme crimes are women, killed in half of cases by their own husbands. Sometimes murders are carried out by other male relatives, or even assassins hired by family members. The psychological toll on women facing honour violence is considerable. Women aged 16 to 24 from Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi backgrounds are three times more likely to kill themselves than the national average for women of their age. A report published by the Centre for Social Cohesion found that many women felt unable to defy their families and therefore "suffer violence, abuse, depression, anxiety and other psychological problems that can lead to self-harm, schizophrenia and suicide". Advocates accuse the British government of not "taking honour crime seriously. Until this happens, the ideas of honour which perpetuate this violence will continue to be passed on through generations."
While most honour killings appear to occur in Muslim countries, cases have been reported in South Asian cultures including Hindu and Sikh communities in Canada, Denmark, Germany and the United States as well as in South America.
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