Episode 68 Show Me the Money

A mother remembers a teenage daughter, killed by her young

boyfriend for shaming his family. It is still as raw now as what it

was then. I try not to think about the attack. I do know what was done

to her, I try to blank that out. Laura's killer was just 17. An

Asian born and raised here, but when she challenged his traditional

culture, Laura had to be silenced. He was found guilty of her murder

last year. He has never shown In multi-cultural Britain today,

many young people from immigrant communities are well integrated.

Yet in many households, old traditions are still a powerful

force. Some cause harm. Up and down the country, behind closed doors,

crimes are being committed. Kidnap and false imprisonment. Women and

girls being beaten, raped and even murdered. All in the name of so-

called honour. The authorities admit that they just don't know the

real scale of this abuse. Can I help? I've just seen a lady who has

been referred to our service who is receiving direct threats from her

family to kill her... There is a national helpline for those being

threatened and suffering domestic violence because of honour. The

helpline was set up by a Sikh, brought up in Derby. Jasvinder

Sanghera. I was never allowed to walk the streets on my own. We were

always chaperoned wherever we went as there was fear of dishonour in

the family. Jasvinder Sanghera was 14 when she was imprisoned in her

family for refusing to marry a man she had never met. She ran away

from home and the code of honour that rules here. What we have are

families living next to each other, they are the eyes and the ears of

the community. They are all involved in the honour system. In

south Asian and Middle Eastern communities, controlling the

behaviour of women is seen as the key to the family's honour.

I was conditioned to learn that from a very young age. It is

dishonourable to make eye contact with men. Sit with men. The shift

in change as you get older, you are not allowed to have boyfriends, if

you are seen talking to the opposite sex, cutting your hair,

wearing make-up, these are taught as dishonourable actions - if you

engage in this behaviour you will put yourself at risk. They can be

triggers for significant harm, a forced marriage, or even murder.

Calls to the Honour helpline have doubled in the four years since it

was set up. The 500 calls a month that we are currently receiving,

from my perspective, is a drop in the ocean. There are hundreds and

thousands out there that we are yet to reach. One of the volunteers

here, Neina, was disowned by her own family. She had run away from

her husband who beat her. She is still afraid of showing her face.

Every time he hit me, he had an excuse. The first thing he said is

that I swore at him or raised my voice. Then my parents would say I

deserved it. For them to be disowned in society, it is like an

honour thing for them - it is easy to sacrifice a daughter or a son or

your extended family that you are trying to please all of the time.

Did you fear you may be killed? lot of times. Even now, my dad said

if you leave him, I will be made to do something that I do not want to

do. No-one knows how many honour crimes there are in this country.

The latest survey of Police Force statistics found over 2,800 a year.

That is nearly eight a day. That does not even include a quarter of

This is one of the handful of refuges in this country just for

Asian women and their children. Everyone here has run away from a

husband's home, where his extended family and "honour" have made their

lives a misery. So many times my husband beat me up. He never

listened to me, always to my mother-in-law. So he was physically

violent to you? Yes, to me, and my mother-in-law and sister-in-law.

They disrespected me. They treated me like I have no honour, no

respect, that I am like a slave. Many of these women come from

Pakistan as young brides. Their passports are taken away, they

become prisoners, almost, not even allowed to learn English. Like

Qawal. My mother-in-law hit me so hard in the face, blood poured from

my ear. I did not know anything about the outside world. I could

not speak the language. I did not know anything about money. I was a

prisoner in the house. Once I was locked in the bedroom for 13 days.

I thought that the only way to get out would be through the upstairs

window or by killing myself. I just Nationally, the police response to

honour crime has been patchy. Serious mistakes have been made. A

murder detective at the Metropolitan Police has had to

learn what honour killing in Britain is all about. She was

stabbed multiple times. 18 times. In all of these cases they involve

extreme violence as the murders are committed to send a message to the

wider community. Often there are multiple perpetrators, there is a

degree of high organisation, precipitated by a family meeting,

often. It was a family meeting that sealed the fate of Banaz Mahmod.

She was a 19-year-old Iraqi Kurd, who had been allowed to leave her

violent husband. But when Banaz Mahmod started secretly seeing

someone else and was spotted kissing him outside this Tube

station in south London it was too much for the family's honour. They

called a meeting of close relatives at their home and they decided to

kill her. This is a letter written by Banaz Mahmod and handed into the

police station on 12th December. In the letter she names some of the

people whom she has heard are going to be responsible for her murder.

She knew who was threatening her? She had been told who the people

were who would be responsible for killing her. The people named in

there are the people convicted for her murder. This video of Banaz was

taken by her boyfriend in hospital, after her father first attempted to

kill her. But Banaz would not press charges. The police did not

recognise the danger she was in. She went home. What happened on

that night, the police were called, but the officer that turned up did

not understand what it was she was being told. She had no prior

knowledge of honour-based violence and simply did not believe, in all

fairness, what it was that she was being told. The police clearly did

fail Banaz on that occasion. month later, Banaz went missing. A

murder hunt was launched. Her uncle and father had been detained, but

there was no hard evidence against them. All our efforts focused on

trying to find Banaz's body. We literally lived, breathed and slept

trying to find her. We have the address, looking now... Banaz's

body was found in the garden of this house, over 100 miles from the

home where she had been murdered. The relatives had been secretly

recorded, boasting of where they had hidden her. After digging for a

day, we finally discovered her body buried six feet deep under the

footings of the house. They had gone to great lengths to ensure we

did not find her. It took five years. Even trips to Iraq to

extradite and bring all Banaz's relatives responsible for her

Banaz Mahmod's case was a watershed - it made the police and

prosecutors realise how serious honour crime had become in this

country. We don't know the true figure of honour killings. It is

anything between ten and 12 a year in this country. I don't know how

many other unmarked graves there are in this green and pleasant land.

I don't know, that suggests to me that we are underestimating the

issue. There are thousands of women in Britain today who live in

silence, in fear of their lives because of honour. We can't show

you the face of this young Kurdish woman. Leila came here to join her

husband, who turned out to be violent and unstable. TRANSLATION:

He put his hands around my throat. He said he would kill me, and cut

me into pieces and put me in a rubbish bag. No-one would even know

I was in this country, he had said. Even the police would not know

about me. There was no reason for him to threaten and insult me. He

said to me, "When I see you it makes me crazy. When I beat you up

it makes me feel better." Leila ended up in hospital with serious

injuries. But she was pregnant and went back to her husband. Things

got worse and she ran away. But leaving her husband has not ended

the threat to her life. TRANSLATION: The dishonourable

thing I did was to go to a refuge. In Kurdistan a refuge is seen as a

very bad place. Some women cannot escape abusive

marriages. The only way out is to silence themselves. Suicide rates

among south Asian women in Britain are three times the national

average. It's a stunning statistic when you realise that, in fact,

there is only one other group that has that similar figure, which are

soldiers that have returned from the war zones of Iraq and

Afghanistan. They themselves, these women, they are living in a war

zone. They can think of no other way of getting out of the situation

without "dishonouring their family" than killing themselves. When

Nashin came to live here from Pakistan, she thought that she

would be happy, but she was soon calling home, saying that he was

ill-treating her. Her father said she was soon calling home saying

that her in-laws were mistreating her. He told her not to leave for

the sake of the honour. TRANSLATION: I said that the best

daughters are the ones that stay in their homes until the day that they

die. No father wants their daughter to end her marriage in divorce,

that would not be right. But things got worse. She left home

three times and went to other relatives in Sheffield, but was

persuaded to go back to her husband. One day she rang her parents in

Pakistan with a chilling warning. She said, "Did you sell me to them

for money? When you see me next, I will not be alive, I will be dead."

An hour later, the new bride was found on fire in her garden. The

burns are too horrific to show Mr Aslam came to England. Every day

he visits his daughter in a nursing home. She suffered a massive brain

haemorrhage and has never been able to reveal what really happened.

TRANSLATION: She is lifeless, like a living corpse. She can't talk,

can't walk, can't eat, she is the living dead. The most painful thing

for us is that our daughter, who The circumstances, you don't know

for sure whether she tried to commit suicide or whether somebody

tried to kill her. Sheffield police have told Mr Aslam and the women's

group helping him there's no evidence anyone else was involved

so they can't take the case any further. The police believe his

daughter set herself alight. It was a cry for help, but her father

It is unclear what happened to her, but campaigners say there are cases

where women unable to escape have resorted to suicide. They want to

see those responsible held to account. People who drive others to

harm themselves in the context of violence and abuse and bullying and

harassment and intimidating and threatening behaviour are just as

much culpable as if they were There's little sign that the desire

to preserve the honour of the family at all costs is changing.

Even with the younger generation. Here in Rotherham, one love-story

across the racial divide has had a tragic ending. Laura Wilson was

only 17, a strong-willed girl whose behaviour would trigger her murder.

Feisty. She had a mouth on her, if she had something to say, she would

say it. Laura lived in Ferham Park, a mixed white and Asian community.

She was only a teenager, but she had already had a baby by an Asian

man, Ishaq Hussain, known as that. -- Zack. He had refused to

recognise the child. But the boy she really loved was his friend,

17-year-old Ashtiaq Ashgar. Ashtiaq was her first love, she adored him.

She was all is on the phone to him and he was on the phone to her.

ready stung by Zak's rejection of their child, when Ashtiaq jilted

Laura, she wasn't going to just accept it. She decided to go and

see Ashtiaq's family Anzac's family and tell them she had had

relationships with both of them. This is the area of Ferham with the

terraced houses. Ashtiaq's house is one of those on the main road.

Detective Mick Mason took me to the area where Laura confronted the

men's families. Their reactions were quite vocal. An argument broke

out. One of the mothers tried to hit Laura with a shoe. She was told

she was not welcome. There were a number of meetings between the two

men and we believe it was decided then that Laura had to be stopped.

Three days after confronting the families, Laura met Ashtiaq down by

the canal. He had sent her a text, he wanted to see her alone. This is

the way Laura came, from by the railings down there. It was dark by

the time Laura met Ashtiaq down by the canal. Then she got a phone

call from her mother. I asked her where she was. I said it was about

time she got home. She said, I will not be long, and that was it.

was the last you heard? The last I Within minutes, the police believe,

Ashtiaq began a frenzy knife attack on Laura before throwing her into

I have seen many murders, but this was the worst I've seen. The

pathologist in court said that Laura had a number of stab wounds

to the crown of her head. He believed that Laura had been

subject to stabbing while she was trying to get out of the canal and

the knife had been used to stop her getting out of the canal. When

Laura's body was found, Ashtiaq and Zak were arrested and tried for her

murder. I think it was about honour and shame. Laura, in their eyes,

had brought shame on the family by coming round and their sons had

brought shame on the family as well. Ashtiaq was found guilty of killing

Laura and sentenced to 17 years in prison. Zak was acquitted. I do

honestly think it was an honour killing. Shame on the family. She

needed to be shut up. They needed to shut her up. And they did. That

is what they did. What happened to Laura Wilson shows that honour can

be just as important to young people born and brought up here as

it is to their parents. I thought this was a generational thing,

something that would die out with my generation. But I've come across

very young people who think the same way. One example, a young man,

20 years old, said to me, don't you understand? Man is a piece of gold,

woman is a piece of silk. If you drop a piece of gold in March, you

can wipe it clean. If you drop a piece of silk in March, it is

stained forever. -- mud. That is his view of women. That is why he

thinks women should be controlled. Their behaviour can't be allowed to

go unchecked. That is the 20-year- old. To find out more about the

attitudes of the younger generation, we carried out an opinion poll of

young Asians. Men and women. Over two-thirds agreed families should

live according to the concept of honour. Interestingly, the younger

age group, between 16 and 24, felt more strongly about it. At first,

only 6% of the total said it was right to physically punish a woman

who brings dishonour on her family. But that went up to 18%, nearly one

in five, when presented with a specific list. Disobeying the

father, marrying someone unacceptable or wanting to end a

marriage. Young Asian women are just as likely as men to say they

The key to changing attitudes to honour lies in education. Boys need

to be taught what is unacceptable, girls to know they don't have to

suffer in silence. The campaigner Jasvinder Sanghera approach 100

schools before finding this one prepared to let her in to talk

about this sensitive issue. don't schools want me to talk to

them? It is the same old thing. We don't want to offend communities,

we don't want to tread on cultural toes. These excuses because they

have been trained to be culturally sensitive. A third of children here

are from ethnic minorities. Jaswinder tells them her own story.

I came home from school, I was 14. My mother sat me down and she

presented his photograph to me. She said, this is the man you are going

to marry. I said, but mum, I want to finish school. She said, no,

where you're going, you don't need an education, you are going to get

married. This already has some experience of the forced marriage

and honour abuse she is describing. We have seen issues were children

have had to be supported into refuges, escaping difficult

situations at home. Children have not returned from holidays abroad.

Situations where we have supported children on their route to

education because it has been an alternative to pressure to be

married. The majority of experts argue that the root cause of honour

crime lies enforced marriage. Forced marriage is where your

family crossed the line, you say no, and they are forcing you to do it.

That is abuse, child abuse, it is wrong. The government is now

considering making forced marriage a criminal offence. Probably about

10,000 of those in this country every year. We are looking at a

substantial problem. We're just scratching the surface. Forced

marriage is the earthquake and what has followed is a tsunami of

domestic abuse, sexual abuse, child protection issues, suicide and

murder. If we can tackle forced marriage, we can prevent all of

these other things from happening. But the signs so far have not been

encouraging. Three years ago, all public agencies in this country,

thousands of organisations, were given the statutory guidelines in

order to tackle forced marriage and honour abuse. But in a recent

review, only 81 even responded. The government admits it is