RISE IN “HONOUR-BASED” ABUSE

OFFENCES INCLUDE RAPE, DEATH THREATS AND ASSAULT

REPORTS of honour-based abuse rose significantly during the pandemic.

“Honour-based” abuse includes incidents or crimes involving violence, threats of violence, intimidation, coercion or abuse, which have or may have been committed to protect or defend the honour of an individual, family or community for alleged or perceived breaches of a code of behaviour.

Figures from the Home Office reveal that there were 2,383 honourbased abuse related offences recorded by the police in England and Wales in the year ending March 2021.

That was up by 18% compared to the year before, when there were 2,024 of these offences recorded.

The figures exclude Greater Manchester, as the police force was unable to provide data for the year ending March 2020 following the implementation of a new IT system.

A further 342 honour-based offences were recorded in the area in the last year alone.

The Home Office says that the increase could be due to a number of reasons, including improvements in crime recording and the identification of honour-based abuse and more victims coming forward to report, as well as a genuine increase in offences.

Covid-19 pandemic restrictions may have affected the level of so-called honour-based abuse, with victims forced into isolation with their abusers.

However, in separate reports the National Police Chiefs’ Council has acknowledged that this type of abuse is hugely underreported, so the true number of cases is likely much higher.

The total 2,725 honour-based abuse related offences recorded by police in the last year included 78 cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) and 125 forced marriage offences.

While there was a drop in forced marriage offences, cases of FGM rose slightly, and there was a big increase in other types offences.

Overall, 16% of honour-based abuse related offences were for assault with injury, 15% for assault without injury and 14% for controlling and coercive behaviour.

Offences also included threats to kill (8%) and rape (6%).

These figures have been collected by the Home Office from police forces on a mandatory basis since April 2019. of honour-based

They have been published to shine a light on the level of these offences dealt with by the police and to encourage other victims to come forward and report these offences to the police.

However, charities helping the victims of honour-based abuse say the figures do not go far enough.

Natasha Rattu, executive director of Karma Nirvana, said: “The reality is that reports such as this are very limited in analysis, very limited in detail, and do very little to spark confidence in victims to come forward and report.

“When it comes to tackling honourbased abuse we’ve got to get the fundamentals right. We know that there is so much rich data available across the criminal justice spectrum that we need to be tapping into.

“For far too long, honour-based abuse has been overlooked. Reactions to tackle the problem have often felt very tokenistic - let’s share the number of flagged offences. But where is that data actually being fed into? What is it influencing? We need to be thinking about the impact.

“We know that through stronger data, stronger evidence, that we will have better representation and understanding of the issues, and fundamentally better responses to victims on the ground. This publication is a reminder that there is so much more that needs to be done in this space.”