Forced Marriage and Honour Killings in Britain ─ Private Lives, Community Crimes and Public Policy Perspectives

This book explores the contemporary phenomenon of forced marriage and a€?honoura€? killings in Britain. Set against a background of increasing a€?honoura€?-based violence within the countrya€?s South Asian and Muslim Diasporas, the book traces the development of the a€?honoura€? question over the past two decades. It accordingly witnesses unprecedented changes in public awareness and government policy including ground-breaking a€?honoura€?-specific legislation and the criminalisation of forced marriage. All of which makes Britain an important context for the study of this now indigenous and self-perpetuating social problem. In considering the scale of the challenge and its underlying causes, attention is paid to the intersections of gendered power structures that disadvantage female members of a€?honoura€? cultures as well as feminist theories that seek to explain them. The book features five key case-studies of a€?honoura€? killings and draws from a wide range of narratives including those of a€?honoura€? violence survivors, grassroots service providers and legislators. Such myriad of perspectives reveals the complexity of the a€?honoura€? issue and the deep ideological divisions that characterise it. With the UKa€?s multiculturalist discourse unable to reconcile protecting patriarchal minority cultures with safeguarding gender equality and human rights, the book raises fundamental questions about the countrya€?s future direction. Following a long trend of state-sponsored integrationist policies, the governmenta€?s response to the a€?honoura€? question points decisively in the direction of a a€?post-multiculturala€? British nation.

Christina Julios is Associate Lecturer at The Open University, UK and Associate Lecturer at Birkbeck, University of London, UK. She was a member of the Crown Prosecution Servicea€?s Domestic Violence External Consultation Group; Census Diversity Advisory Group; the Department for Work and Pensions Ethnic Minority Working Party; HM Revenue and Customsa€? Voluntary and Community Sector Steering Group; Womena€?s Resource Centre Policy Forum; and the Crown Prosecution Servicea€?s Race Equality Board.