This MP Wants "Honour Killings" To Be Treated As Acts Of Terror

    Nusrat Ghani is calling for the word "honour" to be removed from legislation to reflect the motives of perpetrators.

    Tory MP Nusrat Ghani has doubled up on her call to remove the term "honour killing" from crime legislation and instead refer to such offences as "acts of terror" in order to empower victims.

    The Wealden MP told the BBC Asian Network on Tuesday: “I think in 2016 it is insulting to call this kind of act 'honour' in any way, because all it does is legitimise the perpetrator's view that the victim – that is, mostly women … are properties of the men, that the man has control of their ideology, their faith, and their cultural identity. ...

    "The fact this crime continues to take place, we need to use the most appropriate language that empowers victims – especially young women – who may be uncomfortable about coming forward because they don’t want to disrupt their families, and making them understand they are in fact being terrorised by these individuals who hold power over them."

    Ghani, who sits on the home affairs select committee, first raised the issue of "honour killings" during Theresa May's first Prime Minister's Questions last week following the murder of Pakistani social media star Qandeel Baloch.

    Ghani said in parliament: "Extremism takes many forms, from the atrocity in Nice to the violent murder of Qandeel Baloch by her own brother in Pakistan, justified as an ‘honour killing’.

    "Does the prime minister agree that such crimes are in fact acts of terror, not honour, and will she therefore direct that her new government [takes] the lead by ending use of the word ‘honour’ to describe these vile acts, in order to stop giving any legitimacy to the idea that women are the property of men?”

    The MP said at the time that there had been 11,000 instances of these self-styled "honour crimes" in the UK over the last five years. The figures on “honour-based violence” – which includes abductions, murders, forced marriage, and female genital mutilation – comes from research by the Iranian and Kurdish and Women’s Rights Organisation (IKWRO).

    The new prime minister replied saying the government’s counter-extremism strategy was looking across the breadths of issues of extremism, "including tackling the root causes of some practices within communities, such as the so-called honour-based violence".

    When BBC presenter Nihal asked Ghani on Tuesday whether changing the terminology to "terror" would have a demonising effect on the Muslim community, Ghani said: "At PMQs I used my language very carefully and did not use 'terrorism' – I said 'an act of terror'."

    Ghani, who entered parliament in 2015, said she believed 'terror' was the right word to use, adding: "There is a problem when people have a very narrow view of their faith and want to export that view on another person.”

    "It is insulting to call this kind of act 'honour' because all it does is legitimise the perpetrator's view that women the are properties of the men."

    Ghani said: “If your argument is that we need to just leave this area alone, because the language has been hijacked by the far right, then I would say, absolutely, our responsibility is to make sure we manage and control the language. It’s a particular problem and we will deal with it."

    She said: "The victims are at the foremost of our minds and [we have to] try to understand the perpetrators who inflict these kind of crimes," adding that she wanted the issue reviewed among policymakers both in the UK and overseas.

    "When you’re a member of parliament it can take a whole term to get anything done," she said, "but I wanted to put a marker down and say I have talked about this a number of times and say I do believe we can start addressing this in a very public fashion and possibly leading the way and I’m not alone."

    Ghani said both Pakistan and the United Nations were reconsidering their use of the term.

    Earlier on the show, Bradford West MP Naz Shah told Nihal she too believed the term "honour killing" was wrong.

    The Labour MP said: “Let’s be clear, it’s not an honour crime. It’s a crime of control.”

    Shah added: “Why is it when it’s women it’s shame, but it’s the man that has the honour? Where is the equality in that? That is certainly not Islamic and it’s a culture we need to get rid of.

    "What we need to be doing for every young girl, not just in the UK, [but in] Pakistan and India, anywhere in the world, is to say you have the right to life, you have the right to live free of fear, to make your own choices."

    Shah urged women who feared for their safety to contact charities such as the Muslim Women's Network and the Forced Marriage Helpline.