Women Murdered in the Name of “Honor”

Western societies tend to consider cultures of honor as those that place honor above all else, including the lives of female family members who are perceived to have committed actions of shame and dishonor, typically through sexual or other forms of disobedience. Drawing on the specific case of Shafilea Ahmed, a UK-born woman of Pakistani origin who was murdered by her parents, this chapter presents a critical analysis of how the prosecution as well as the media identified a culture of honor as the primary explanation for her murder without adequately exploring other contributing factors, perpetuating harmful generalizations about ethnic minority groups in Britain. Some scholars and activists reject the use of the designations such as “honor”-based violence (HBV), “honor killing” and “honor murder”, categorizing such crimes as “domestic violence”, while others place the various types of “honor violence” under the umbrella of “violence against women” (VAW).