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These are murders in which victims, predominantly women, are
killed for perceived immoral behaviour, which is deemed to have
breached the honour code of a family or community, causing
shame. They are sometimes called 'honour killings'.
There is, however, no honour in murder.
Evidence from research and analysis shows that where such
murders occur, most often wives are killed by their husbands and
daughters by their fathers. Males can also be victims,
sometimes as a consequence of their involvement in what is deemed
to be an inappropriate relationship, if they are gay or believed to
be supporting the victim.
Trigger events can include:
smoking in public
Inappropriate make-up or dress
The existence of a boyfriend
Rejecting a forced marriage
Pregnancy outside of marriage
inter-faith relationships
rape
attempts to separate/divorce
reporting domestic abuse
kissing, intimacy or smoking in a public place
So called Honour Based Violence (HBV) cuts across all cultures
and communities: Turkish, Kurdish, Afghani, South Asian, African,
Middle Eastern, South and Eastern European for example. This
is not an exhaustive list.