Never let it be said that persistence goes unrewarded because, if only in the interests of a quieter life, I’ve taken the time to read through the Centre for Social Cohesion/Civitas report on ‘honour crimes’ – Crimes of the Community – and come to the conclusion that there are a few observations worth making.

Whether they’re quite same observations that some might want to be voiced… well that remains to be seen.

Let’s get the first question out of the way – is the report actually worth reading?

Well, that depends very much on what you do or don’t already know about this issue and what you’re inclined to look for from this kind of report. Personally it left me with the feeling of ‘So tell me something I don’t already know’ – and Sunny may well feel the same way after reading it – but if the subject is a new one to you then its certainly worth giving it a look as the report does contain some useful information.

That said, the report has its distinct limitations, and its worth being aware of these from the outset.

If what interests you are questions as to the extent to which honour-related crimes may be prevalent in some of Britain’s minority communities then you’re going to be disappointed. But for a few commentaries on past cases which have garnered a fairly high profile in the media – albeit delivered with rather less in the way of histrionics than would have been evident in the original source material, much of which appears to have come from the Daily Mail – much of what the report delivers is anecdotal commentary; the views of support workers, police officers and – of course – victims of honour-related crimes.

This is interesting enough in its own right but overall the report is lacking the kind of ‘hard’ evidence one would tend to look for in order to build up a coherent picture of quite to what extent this is a serious problem and how much of part distorted and oppressive notions of honour actually play in the life of some of Britain’s minority communities, and where it does attempt to provide such information what the report has to say is, at best, a little unreliable and overly concerned with fitting the limited evidence it has to hand to its preferred thesis than it is in drawing valid conclusions from the evidence.

For example, on page 19 of the report you’ll find the following table, which the report calls a ‘FACTBOX’ (their capitals, not mine) which purports to demonstrate the effect of ‘honour’ on education levels amongst women in certain communities:

Now it may well be the case, in fact its very likely, that honour is a factor here (not to mention attitudes towards women and education in certain communities, generally) but this table, which is presented at the end of section on ‘isolation, imprisonment and withdrawal from school’ – part of the report’s chapter on forced marriage – provides nothing by way of evidence to support its assertion that the different level of women attaining degree level qualifications in different communities can be accounted for purely in terms of the effects of ‘honour’.

Honour is undoubtedly going to be a factor here, but it will be one factor amongst many and may be far from being the most important – some women are certainly forced in marriage at an early age and miss out on higher education, others will marry willingly just as early in life because they see it part of their culture, which they value.

It’s just not as simple as report is trying to suggest, which becomes fully apparent when you consult the source from which it obtained this data, a report by the very well respected Joseph Rowntree Foundation on the subject of The Role of Higher Education in providing opportunities for South Asian women.

Scroll through the report and you’ll find the table from which the CSC extracted its information – its this one:

But what you’ll also find is that while the cited numbers match up, the context is which the JRF presents this information is very different. The table is part of a section examining the growing demand for higher education amongst South Asian women and while this section certainly notes that there can be a conflict between the desires of these young women and parental/familial expectations in terms of marriage, one that could result in their experiencing hostility in their local community, the JRF report also notes that some women’s experiences were of an altogether more positive kind:

Having achieved their goal of studying for a degree, these pioneers seemed to be viewed in two different ways within their communities. They were seen as role models for other younger women who wished to aspire to their position, thus the pioneers set the trend of going to university for younger South Asian women. The other role they performed was as ‘deviants’; those within the wider community who had not educated their daughters perceived their education as deviating from the norm.

Also of note, perhaps even as something of a Freudian slip. the figure of 29.7%, which the CSC present in its report as the ‘UK Average’ for women between 25 and 29 years of age possessing a degree level qualification turn out, on closer examination, to be the figure for only ‘British’ women – and as the JRF used census data we can take that to mean the ‘White British’ category in the Census’s scheme of ethnic classification.

A simple error?

Perhaps… but as the Pakistani community is one which is particularly singled out in the report as having significant ‘problems’ arising from its culture of honour one has to question whether this is merely a presentational error or a deliberate attempt to conceal a material fact – the difference in the number of women from Pakistani communities obtaining degrees is only 4% or so lower than that of the majority White British community and this gap is starting to close – which doesn’t quite fit the overall thesis.

It is an interesting report, certainly, one that is for the most part informative, which makes some valid and pointed criticisms of the government’s over reliance on certain established organisations – if the assertions made are true – which it suggests are not delivering much of value and, to varying degrees, acting as an impediment to efforts to tackle honour-related criminality – cue another of Sunny’s sharp and entertaining critiques of self-appointed community leaders – and which advances a string of recommendations ranging from the naive and slightly tokenistic:

Foreign policy

Foreign policy should aim to encourage other countries – and especially Pakistan, Bangladesh and Kurdistan – to improve women’s rights. This will help to change attitudes among immigrants from these regions who live in the UK.

To others which are not only eminently sensible (and supportable) but which raise the question of why the government is not acting on them immediately:

Reform the ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ rule

Women suffering from domestic violence should be made exempt from the ‘No Recourse’ rule (which prevents them from receiving benefits within two years of coming to the UK) on condition that they undertake language and career training. This will enable women to flee abusive situations and also help them become financially independent in the long-term. [Fines should also be introduced for those who ‘abandon spouses’]

I should say that I’m at all sure that fines for abandonment are a good idea. If a husband is prepared to abandon his wife then one can’t help but wonder what kind of conditions she may having been living under prior to abandonment and whether or not she’s much better off out of that situation.

Greater support for women’s groups

Local and central government should extend greater support to women’s groups. This can include greater financial support and greater access to schools and local authority premises.

Consult wider range of women’s groups

The government relies excessively on the Southall Black Sisters for information and advice. The government should instead consult with a broader range of women’s groups from around the UK which actually carry out on-on-the-ground work with victims of honour-based violence.

You certainly won’t find me complaining about the suggestion that there should be more funding for women’s groups or that the government should be consulting with a broad range of groups and opinion when making policy.

Criminalise forced marriages

Making forced marriages a civil offence has not worked. A high profile law to criminalise forced marriage is needed to tell communities that this practice is wrong and that people who carried out forced marriages will be held accountable.

Punish accomplices in honour killings and domestic violence

People who seek to impede police investigations or withhold evidence should be held accountable. Those who help track down women who are then subjected to violence should also be prosecuted.

And again, subject to due process, neither of these seems an unworkable suggestion.

That said, what I find much less palatable in this report is its underlying agenda and assumptions.

One should always approach the output of political think-tanks with a degree of caution and skepticism – by their very nature such think tanks exist to promote a particular agenda and political viewpoint and that, in turn, both colours and influences their output. These are not academic institutions producing academic studies and, as such, are more than a little prone to exercises in fitting the evidence to the thesis and its expected conclusions (and omitting contradictory information in the process) rather than deriving conclusions from the evidence.

The obvious subtext to this report, as with other reports on related subjects from the same source(s) – i.e. the Centre for Social Cohesion and Civitas – is the assumption that integration is synonymous (or near synonymous) with Anglicisation, within which there is an underlying assumption that the prevailing British culture into which migrant communities are expected to integrate is somehow a fixed and inflexible entity, making integration a one way process in which migrants are expected to adopt our (supposed) values.

There is some truth, one suspects, in the idea that integration does necessitate a degree of Anglicisation, an acceptance of certain social norms and values without which society would not be able to function adequately (and migrants not be able to function sufficient effectively to meet their basic need) but this is far from being the one-way street that the CSC seems to assume.

What has, in historical terms, made Britain so successful in integrating wave after wave of migrants is an implicit and (usually) unstated understanding that the process of integration is two-way street the ultimate result of which is not migrants adopting a fixed set of notionally ‘British values’ but a process of hybridization out of which emerges a series of new, vibrant and vigorous British identities. What it means to be British, our own culture and society, is as much changed by the integration of migrant communities into British society as it effects changes in the traditional culture of those same communities and while the process may be, at time, a little fraught and painful, in the end we are all the richer a nation for it.

Serious though this issue is, one needs always, in dealing with such reports, to be a little careful to identify any underlying agenda that may come packaged as part of the deal – in this case a view of what it is to British (and what ‘Britishness’ is) which implicitly seeks to deny the defining characteristic of British culture, its ability to change and evolve over time. Civitas, and those who share its political values, may well believe themselves to be ‘standing up’ for British culture but, in truth, their view is one that devalues that culture to the detriment of us all.

About the author
'Unity' is a regular contributor to Liberal Conspiracy. He also blogs at Ministry of Truth.
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