Young British Asians back ‘honour’ code

A BBC poll, for the programme Panorama, suggests 18 per cent of the 500 people questioned felt certain behaviour by a woman which could affect her family’s honour was justification for physical punishment.

Such behaviour included disobeying her father, and wanting to leave an existing or pre-arranged marriage, the survey reported.

The research, carried out for the broadcaster by ComRes, quizzed young Asians living in Britain between the ages of 16 and 34.

It found 69 per cent agreed that families should live according to honour.

This figure rose to 75 per cent among young men, compared with 63 per cent of young women, it was reported.

Only 3 per cent said there was ever a justification for so-called “honour killings”.

This rose to 6 per cent among the young Asian men surveyed, compared with 1 per cent of the women.

A survey of police forces by the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKWRO) in November found there were almost eight incidences of honour crimes a day, it was reported, although 13 of 52 forces did not supply the charity with a breakdown.

Nazir Afzal, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said the true figure of honour killings is unknown, and could be between 10 and 12 a year in Britain.

Mr Afzal, who said there were 10,000 forced marriages in the UK every year, told the broadcaster: “Forced marriage is the earthquake and what’s followed is a tsunami of domestic abuse, sexual abuse, child protection issues, suicide and murder.

“If we can tackle forced marriage then we can prevent all these other things from happening.”