Policy responses to honor-based violence: a cultural or national problem?

Abstract

The UK government has consistently sidelined honor-based violence from mainstream political discourse and has chosen to present the issue as a problem that is embedded in the culture of minority communities. This inevitably leads to a sense of heightened cultural sensitivity and the pressure to be viewed as culturally competent. It is argued that for honor-based violence to be managed effectively, it must first be dissociated from culture and from mainstream domestic violence discourse and recognized as a national problem that requires serious and specific policy intervention. Although it is acknowledged that all policy responses to complex social problems should reflect multicultural sensitivity, we argue in this critical review that this should not become an excuse for nonintervention.