:00:08. > :00:17.A mother remembers a teenage daughter, killed by her young
:00:17. > :00:27.boyfriend for shaming his family. It is still as raw now as what it
:00:27. > :00:27.
:00:27. > :00:37.was then. I try not to think about the attack. I do know what was done
:00:37. > :00:37.
:00:37. > :00:40.to her, I try to blank that out. Laura's killer was just 17. An
:00:40. > :00:47.Asian born and raised here, but when she challenged his traditional
:00:47. > :00:57.culture, Laura had to be silenced. He was found guilty of her murder
:00:57. > :01:04.
:01:04. > :01:09.last year. He has never shown In multi-cultural Britain today,
:01:09. > :01:11.many young people from immigrant communities are well integrated.
:01:11. > :01:19.Yet in many households, old traditions are still a powerful
:01:19. > :01:24.force. Some cause harm. Up and down the country, behind closed doors,
:01:24. > :01:28.crimes are being committed. Kidnap and false imprisonment. Women and
:01:28. > :01:33.girls being beaten, raped and even murdered. All in the name of so-
:01:33. > :01:43.called honour. The authorities admit that they just don't know the
:01:43. > :01:50.
:01:50. > :01:52.real scale of this abuse. Can I help? I've just seen a lady who has
:01:53. > :01:59.been referred to our service who is receiving direct threats from her
:01:59. > :02:09.family to kill her... There is a national helpline for those being
:02:09. > :02:14.threatened and suffering domestic violence because of honour. The
:02:14. > :02:22.helpline was set up by a Sikh, brought up in Derby. Jasvinder
:02:22. > :02:25.Sanghera. I was never allowed to walk the streets on my own. We were
:02:25. > :02:29.always chaperoned wherever we went as there was fear of dishonour in
:02:29. > :02:34.the family. Jasvinder Sanghera was 14 when she was imprisoned in her
:02:34. > :02:41.family for refusing to marry a man she had never met. She ran away
:02:42. > :02:45.from home and the code of honour that rules here. What we have are
:02:45. > :02:51.families living next to each other, they are the eyes and the ears of
:02:51. > :02:53.the community. They are all involved in the honour system. In
:02:53. > :03:01.south Asian and Middle Eastern communities, controlling the
:03:01. > :03:06.behaviour of women is seen as the key to the family's honour.
:03:06. > :03:10.I was conditioned to learn that from a very young age. It is
:03:10. > :03:14.dishonourable to make eye contact with men. Sit with men. The shift
:03:14. > :03:17.in change as you get older, you are not allowed to have boyfriends, if
:03:17. > :03:19.you are seen talking to the opposite sex, cutting your hair,
:03:19. > :03:29.wearing make-up, these are taught as dishonourable actions - if you
:03:29. > :03:36.engage in this behaviour you will put yourself at risk. They can be
:03:36. > :03:39.triggers for significant harm, a forced marriage, or even murder.
:03:39. > :03:46.Calls to the Honour helpline have doubled in the four years since it
:03:46. > :03:52.was set up. The 500 calls a month that we are currently receiving,
:03:52. > :04:00.from my perspective, is a drop in the ocean. There are hundreds and
:04:00. > :04:05.thousands out there that we are yet to reach. One of the volunteers
:04:05. > :04:11.here, Neina, was disowned by her own family. She had run away from
:04:11. > :04:16.her husband who beat her. She is still afraid of showing her face.
:04:16. > :04:20.Every time he hit me, he had an excuse. The first thing he said is
:04:20. > :04:25.that I swore at him or raised my voice. Then my parents would say I
:04:25. > :04:29.deserved it. For them to be disowned in society, it is like an
:04:29. > :04:35.honour thing for them - it is easy to sacrifice a daughter or a son or
:04:35. > :04:40.your extended family that you are trying to please all of the time.
:04:40. > :04:44.Did you fear you may be killed? lot of times. Even now, my dad said
:04:44. > :04:53.if you leave him, I will be made to do something that I do not want to
:04:53. > :04:59.do. No-one knows how many honour crimes there are in this country.
:04:59. > :05:04.The latest survey of Police Force statistics found over 2,800 a year.
:05:04. > :05:14.That is nearly eight a day. That does not even include a quarter of
:05:14. > :05:24.
:05:24. > :05:30.This is one of the handful of refuges in this country just for
:05:30. > :05:33.Asian women and their children. Everyone here has run away from a
:05:33. > :05:42.husband's home, where his extended family and "honour" have made their
:05:42. > :05:47.lives a misery. So many times my husband beat me up. He never
:05:47. > :05:52.listened to me, always to my mother-in-law. So he was physically
:05:52. > :05:55.violent to you? Yes, to me, and my mother-in-law and sister-in-law.
:05:55. > :06:02.They disrespected me. They treated me like I have no honour, no
:06:02. > :06:06.respect, that I am like a slave. Many of these women come from
:06:06. > :06:11.Pakistan as young brides. Their passports are taken away, they
:06:11. > :06:17.become prisoners, almost, not even allowed to learn English. Like
:06:17. > :06:22.Qawal. My mother-in-law hit me so hard in the face, blood poured from
:06:22. > :06:27.my ear. I did not know anything about the outside world. I could
:06:27. > :06:32.not speak the language. I did not know anything about money. I was a
:06:32. > :06:35.prisoner in the house. Once I was locked in the bedroom for 13 days.
:06:35. > :06:45.I thought that the only way to get out would be through the upstairs
:06:45. > :06:47.
:06:47. > :06:55.window or by killing myself. I just Nationally, the police response to
:06:55. > :06:57.honour crime has been patchy. Serious mistakes have been made. A
:06:57. > :07:06.murder detective at the Metropolitan Police has had to
:07:06. > :07:12.learn what honour killing in Britain is all about. She was
:07:12. > :07:15.stabbed multiple times. 18 times. In all of these cases they involve
:07:16. > :07:20.extreme violence as the murders are committed to send a message to the
:07:20. > :07:22.wider community. Often there are multiple perpetrators, there is a
:07:22. > :07:30.degree of high organisation, precipitated by a family meeting,
:07:30. > :07:34.often. It was a family meeting that sealed the fate of Banaz Mahmod.
:07:34. > :07:40.She was a 19-year-old Iraqi Kurd, who had been allowed to leave her
:07:40. > :07:43.violent husband. But when Banaz Mahmod started secretly seeing
:07:43. > :07:49.someone else and was spotted kissing him outside this Tube
:07:49. > :07:52.station in south London it was too much for the family's honour. They
:07:52. > :07:59.called a meeting of close relatives at their home and they decided to
:07:59. > :08:04.kill her. This is a letter written by Banaz Mahmod and handed into the
:08:04. > :08:10.police station on 12th December. In the letter she names some of the
:08:10. > :08:16.people whom she has heard are going to be responsible for her murder.
:08:16. > :08:19.She knew who was threatening her? She had been told who the people
:08:19. > :08:26.were who would be responsible for killing her. The people named in
:08:26. > :08:29.there are the people convicted for her murder. This video of Banaz was
:08:29. > :08:39.taken by her boyfriend in hospital, after her father first attempted to
:08:39. > :08:40.
:08:40. > :08:47.kill her. But Banaz would not press charges. The police did not
:08:47. > :08:51.recognise the danger she was in. She went home. What happened on
:08:51. > :08:54.that night, the police were called, but the officer that turned up did
:08:54. > :08:57.not understand what it was she was being told. She had no prior
:08:57. > :09:00.knowledge of honour-based violence and simply did not believe, in all
:09:00. > :09:10.fairness, what it was that she was being told. The police clearly did
:09:10. > :09:10.
:09:10. > :09:15.fail Banaz on that occasion. month later, Banaz went missing. A
:09:15. > :09:21.murder hunt was launched. Her uncle and father had been detained, but
:09:21. > :09:26.there was no hard evidence against them. All our efforts focused on
:09:26. > :09:35.trying to find Banaz's body. We literally lived, breathed and slept
:09:35. > :09:38.trying to find her. We have the address, looking now... Banaz's
:09:38. > :09:42.body was found in the garden of this house, over 100 miles from the
:09:43. > :09:48.home where she had been murdered. The relatives had been secretly
:09:48. > :09:51.recorded, boasting of where they had hidden her. After digging for a
:09:51. > :09:59.day, we finally discovered her body buried six feet deep under the
:09:59. > :10:07.footings of the house. They had gone to great lengths to ensure we
:10:07. > :10:10.did not find her. It took five years. Even trips to Iraq to
:10:10. > :10:20.extradite and bring all Banaz's relatives responsible for her
:10:20. > :10:20.
:10:20. > :10:23.Banaz Mahmod's case was a watershed - it made the police and
:10:23. > :10:32.prosecutors realise how serious honour crime had become in this
:10:32. > :10:36.country. We don't know the true figure of honour killings. It is
:10:36. > :10:39.anything between ten and 12 a year in this country. I don't know how
:10:39. > :10:42.many other unmarked graves there are in this green and pleasant land.
:10:42. > :10:46.I don't know, that suggests to me that we are underestimating the
:10:46. > :10:53.issue. There are thousands of women in Britain today who live in
:10:53. > :10:58.silence, in fear of their lives because of honour. We can't show
:10:58. > :11:06.you the face of this young Kurdish woman. Leila came here to join her
:11:06. > :11:13.husband, who turned out to be violent and unstable. TRANSLATION:
:11:13. > :11:16.He put his hands around my throat. He said he would kill me, and cut
:11:16. > :11:20.me into pieces and put me in a rubbish bag. No-one would even know
:11:20. > :11:24.I was in this country, he had said. Even the police would not know
:11:24. > :11:28.about me. There was no reason for him to threaten and insult me. He
:11:28. > :11:36.said to me, "When I see you it makes me crazy. When I beat you up
:11:36. > :11:44.it makes me feel better." Leila ended up in hospital with serious
:11:44. > :11:49.injuries. But she was pregnant and went back to her husband. Things
:11:49. > :11:54.got worse and she ran away. But leaving her husband has not ended
:11:54. > :11:59.the threat to her life. TRANSLATION: The dishonourable
:11:59. > :12:09.thing I did was to go to a refuge. In Kurdistan a refuge is seen as a
:12:09. > :12:16.very bad place. Some women cannot escape abusive
:12:16. > :12:19.marriages. The only way out is to silence themselves. Suicide rates
:12:19. > :12:26.among south Asian women in Britain are three times the national
:12:26. > :12:30.average. It's a stunning statistic when you realise that, in fact,
:12:30. > :12:32.there is only one other group that has that similar figure, which are
:12:32. > :12:36.soldiers that have returned from the war zones of Iraq and
:12:36. > :12:40.Afghanistan. They themselves, these women, they are living in a war
:12:40. > :12:46.zone. They can think of no other way of getting out of the situation
:12:46. > :12:49.without "dishonouring their family" than killing themselves. When
:12:49. > :12:52.Nashin came to live here from Pakistan, she thought that she
:12:52. > :13:02.would be happy, but she was soon calling home, saying that he was
:13:02. > :13:08.
:13:08. > :13:12.ill-treating her. Her father said she was soon calling home saying
:13:12. > :13:15.that her in-laws were mistreating her. He told her not to leave for
:13:15. > :13:19.the sake of the honour. TRANSLATION: I said that the best
:13:19. > :13:22.daughters are the ones that stay in their homes until the day that they
:13:22. > :13:28.die. No father wants their daughter to end her marriage in divorce,
:13:28. > :13:31.that would not be right. But things got worse. She left home
:13:31. > :13:37.three times and went to other relatives in Sheffield, but was
:13:37. > :13:45.persuaded to go back to her husband. One day she rang her parents in
:13:45. > :13:51.Pakistan with a chilling warning. She said, "Did you sell me to them
:13:51. > :13:58.for money? When you see me next, I will not be alive, I will be dead."
:13:58. > :14:08.An hour later, the new bride was found on fire in her garden. The
:14:08. > :14:10.
:14:10. > :14:17.burns are too horrific to show Mr Aslam came to England. Every day
:14:17. > :14:25.he visits his daughter in a nursing home. She suffered a massive brain
:14:25. > :14:30.haemorrhage and has never been able to reveal what really happened.
:14:30. > :14:36.TRANSLATION: She is lifeless, like a living corpse. She can't talk,
:14:36. > :14:46.can't walk, can't eat, she is the living dead. The most painful thing
:14:46. > :14:50.
:14:50. > :14:53.for us is that our daughter, who The circumstances, you don't know
:14:53. > :15:01.for sure whether she tried to commit suicide or whether somebody
:15:01. > :15:04.tried to kill her. Sheffield police have told Mr Aslam and the women's
:15:04. > :15:08.group helping him there's no evidence anyone else was involved
:15:08. > :15:13.so they can't take the case any further. The police believe his
:15:13. > :15:23.daughter set herself alight. It was a cry for help, but her father
:15:23. > :15:31.
:15:31. > :15:34.It is unclear what happened to her, but campaigners say there are cases
:15:34. > :15:42.where women unable to escape have resorted to suicide. They want to
:15:42. > :15:45.see those responsible held to account. People who drive others to
:15:45. > :15:47.harm themselves in the context of violence and abuse and bullying and
:15:47. > :15:57.harassment and intimidating and threatening behaviour are just as
:15:57. > :16:07.
:16:07. > :16:11.much culpable as if they were There's little sign that the desire
:16:11. > :16:15.to preserve the honour of the family at all costs is changing.
:16:15. > :16:22.Even with the younger generation. Here in Rotherham, one love-story
:16:22. > :16:31.across the racial divide has had a tragic ending. Laura Wilson was
:16:31. > :16:36.only 17, a strong-willed girl whose behaviour would trigger her murder.
:16:36. > :16:42.Feisty. She had a mouth on her, if she had something to say, she would
:16:42. > :16:46.say it. Laura lived in Ferham Park, a mixed white and Asian community.
:16:46. > :16:56.She was only a teenager, but she had already had a baby by an Asian
:16:56. > :16:57.
:16:57. > :17:07.man, Ishaq Hussain, known as that. -- Zack. He had refused to
:17:07. > :17:14.
:17:14. > :17:18.recognise the child. But the boy she really loved was his friend,
:17:18. > :17:23.17-year-old Ashtiaq Ashgar. Ashtiaq was her first love, she adored him.
:17:23. > :17:25.She was all is on the phone to him and he was on the phone to her.
:17:25. > :17:32.ready stung by Zak's rejection of their child, when Ashtiaq jilted
:17:32. > :17:35.Laura, she wasn't going to just accept it. She decided to go and
:17:35. > :17:45.see Ashtiaq's family Anzac's family and tell them she had had
:17:45. > :17:48.
:17:48. > :17:51.relationships with both of them. This is the area of Ferham with the
:17:51. > :17:54.terraced houses. Ashtiaq's house is one of those on the main road.
:17:54. > :17:59.Detective Mick Mason took me to the area where Laura confronted the
:17:59. > :18:09.men's families. Their reactions were quite vocal. An argument broke
:18:09. > :18:13.
:18:13. > :18:16.out. One of the mothers tried to hit Laura with a shoe. She was told
:18:16. > :18:26.she was not welcome. There were a number of meetings between the two
:18:26. > :18:28.men and we believe it was decided then that Laura had to be stopped.
:18:28. > :18:37.Three days after confronting the families, Laura met Ashtiaq down by
:18:37. > :18:44.the canal. He had sent her a text, he wanted to see her alone. This is
:18:44. > :18:48.the way Laura came, from by the railings down there. It was dark by
:18:48. > :18:54.the time Laura met Ashtiaq down by the canal. Then she got a phone
:18:54. > :18:58.call from her mother. I asked her where she was. I said it was about
:18:58. > :19:08.time she got home. She said, I will not be long, and that was it.
:19:08. > :19:11.was the last you heard? The last I Within minutes, the police believe,
:19:11. > :19:21.Ashtiaq began a frenzy knife attack on Laura before throwing her into
:19:21. > :19:24.
:19:24. > :19:27.I have seen many murders, but this was the worst I've seen. The
:19:27. > :19:32.pathologist in court said that Laura had a number of stab wounds
:19:32. > :19:36.to the crown of her head. He believed that Laura had been
:19:36. > :19:43.subject to stabbing while she was trying to get out of the canal and
:19:43. > :19:46.the knife had been used to stop her getting out of the canal. When
:19:46. > :19:53.Laura's body was found, Ashtiaq and Zak were arrested and tried for her
:19:53. > :19:57.murder. I think it was about honour and shame. Laura, in their eyes,
:19:57. > :20:00.had brought shame on the family by coming round and their sons had
:20:00. > :20:08.brought shame on the family as well. Ashtiaq was found guilty of killing
:20:08. > :20:13.Laura and sentenced to 17 years in prison. Zak was acquitted. I do
:20:13. > :20:19.honestly think it was an honour killing. Shame on the family. She
:20:19. > :20:26.needed to be shut up. They needed to shut her up. And they did. That
:20:26. > :20:29.is what they did. What happened to Laura Wilson shows that honour can
:20:29. > :20:36.be just as important to young people born and brought up here as
:20:36. > :20:40.it is to their parents. I thought this was a generational thing,
:20:40. > :20:44.something that would die out with my generation. But I've come across
:20:44. > :20:49.very young people who think the same way. One example, a young man,
:20:49. > :20:53.20 years old, said to me, don't you understand? Man is a piece of gold,
:20:53. > :20:58.woman is a piece of silk. If you drop a piece of gold in March, you
:20:58. > :21:08.can wipe it clean. If you drop a piece of silk in March, it is
:21:08. > :21:09.
:21:09. > :21:11.stained forever. -- mud. That is his view of women. That is why he
:21:11. > :21:15.thinks women should be controlled. Their behaviour can't be allowed to
:21:15. > :21:18.go unchecked. That is the 20-year- old. To find out more about the
:21:18. > :21:21.attitudes of the younger generation, we carried out an opinion poll of
:21:21. > :21:25.young Asians. Men and women. Over two-thirds agreed families should
:21:25. > :21:31.live according to the concept of honour. Interestingly, the younger
:21:31. > :21:35.age group, between 16 and 24, felt more strongly about it. At first,
:21:35. > :21:41.only 6% of the total said it was right to physically punish a woman
:21:41. > :21:47.who brings dishonour on her family. But that went up to 18%, nearly one
:21:47. > :21:49.in five, when presented with a specific list. Disobeying the
:21:49. > :21:55.father, marrying someone unacceptable or wanting to end a
:21:55. > :22:05.marriage. Young Asian women are just as likely as men to say they
:22:05. > :22:08.
:22:08. > :22:11.The key to changing attitudes to honour lies in education. Boys need
:22:11. > :22:16.to be taught what is unacceptable, girls to know they don't have to
:22:16. > :22:19.suffer in silence. The campaigner Jasvinder Sanghera approach 100
:22:19. > :22:26.schools before finding this one prepared to let her in to talk
:22:26. > :22:31.about this sensitive issue. don't schools want me to talk to
:22:31. > :22:35.them? It is the same old thing. We don't want to offend communities,
:22:35. > :22:40.we don't want to tread on cultural toes. These excuses because they
:22:40. > :22:46.have been trained to be culturally sensitive. A third of children here
:22:46. > :22:50.are from ethnic minorities. Jaswinder tells them her own story.
:22:51. > :22:55.I came home from school, I was 14. My mother sat me down and she
:22:55. > :23:01.presented his photograph to me. She said, this is the man you are going
:23:01. > :23:04.to marry. I said, but mum, I want to finish school. She said, no,
:23:04. > :23:09.where you're going, you don't need an education, you are going to get
:23:09. > :23:14.married. This already has some experience of the forced marriage
:23:14. > :23:16.and honour abuse she is describing. We have seen issues were children
:23:17. > :23:22.have had to be supported into refuges, escaping difficult
:23:22. > :23:24.situations at home. Children have not returned from holidays abroad.
:23:24. > :23:27.Situations where we have supported children on their route to
:23:27. > :23:37.education because it has been an alternative to pressure to be
:23:37. > :23:38.
:23:38. > :23:43.married. The majority of experts argue that the root cause of honour
:23:43. > :23:48.crime lies enforced marriage. Forced marriage is where your
:23:48. > :23:55.family crossed the line, you say no, and they are forcing you to do it.
:23:55. > :24:03.That is abuse, child abuse, it is wrong. The government is now
:24:03. > :24:07.considering making forced marriage a criminal offence. Probably about
:24:07. > :24:11.10,000 of those in this country every year. We are looking at a
:24:11. > :24:14.substantial problem. We're just scratching the surface. Forced
:24:14. > :24:16.marriage is the earthquake and what has followed is a tsunami of
:24:16. > :24:23.domestic abuse, sexual abuse, child protection issues, suicide and
:24:23. > :24:30.murder. If we can tackle forced marriage, we can prevent all of
:24:30. > :24:34.these other things from happening. But the signs so far have not been
:24:34. > :24:36.encouraging. Three years ago, all public agencies in this country,
:24:36. > :24:44.thousands of organisations, were given the statutory guidelines in
:24:44. > :24:48.order to tackle forced marriage and honour abuse. But in a recent
:24:48. > :24:58.review, only 81 even responded. The government admits it is
:24:58. > :24:58.