It has taken the police nine years to secure convictions for murder against the parents of 17 year old Shafilea Ahmed. Murdered by her parents in an honour killing, they spun a web of lies to conceal the true circumstances of her death for years. A wall of silence surrounded the case until 2007 when police finally made a breakthrough, and charged the parents. Cases like Shafilea’s occasionally capture the public attention and then recede from popular consciousness, but what can authorities do to end honour based violence and forced marriages?
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There was a distinct lack of political will under the last Labour government to tackle this problem. Most acutely, the problem of honour related crime affects families of Pakistani and Bangladeshi ethnic origin. According to the Home Office, 85 per cent of those in forced marriages are women aged 15-24, 90 per cent are Muslim, and 90 per cent are of Pakistani or Bangladeshi heritage.
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