Improving international policy responses to honour-based violence and abuse (HBVA)

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This fellowship builds on my PhD, Honour-based abuse in England and Wales: Who does what to whom?, which for the first time systematically examined hundreds of UK cases of honour-based violence and abuse (HBVA) (Bates, 2017). In the UK, HBVA is defined by the National Police Chiefs' Council as: "a crime or incident involving violence, threats of violence, intimidation, coercion or abuse (including psychological, physical, sexual, financial or emotional abuse) which has, or may have been, committed to protect or defend the honour of an individual, family and/or community for alleged or perceived breaches of the family and/or community code of behaviour" (NPCC, 2015). It often occurs in the context of families controlling women's sexuality or autonomy (Sen, 2005). My PhD research addressed a gap in understanding of HBVA in the UK. Previous literature had identified that there was a lack of data comparing what happened in multiple HBVA cases (Parliament. House of Commons, 2008), that the public understanding of this abuse was skewed towards forced marriage and the most 'sensational' cases of honour killings (Brandon and Hafez, 2008; Gill and Mitra-Kahn, 2010), and that it was an under-reported abuse (HMIC, 2015). Looking at real-life cases gathered from police and victim support services, my PhD profiled the victims and perpetrators, and built a typology of violence which showed the relationship between victim and perpetrator to affect the nature of the abusive behaviour. As Fellow, I will develop these findings and communicate them to a wider audience - including policy-makers and practitioners in the UK and internationally - so that they can be applied to better identify and support victims of honour-based violence and abuse. I will do this in three ways. Firstly, I will communicate my findings to academic and research audiences, by writing up analysis of specific aspects of my PhD data into journal articles for publication (one profiling victims; and one examining what the criminal justice response to cases of HBVA is - and should be), and presenting at international conferences. Secondly, I will disseminate my findings for a non-academic audience, including for the general public via a blog on the Policy Bristol website, hosting an experts' seminar for policy-makers, running workshops on my findings for practitioners in violence/abuse support services, and participating in events via the UK-based network Honour-Based Abuse Research Matrix. Thirdly, I will develop the findings beyond my PhD by carrying out a short piece of research comparing the government policy responses to HBVA in the UK, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden, and preparing a bid for further research (after this fellowship) focusing on how to improve the criminal justice response and support services for victims.Together, these activities will make the findings from my PhD more widely available, and materially improve the academic, practical and public state of knowledge about HBVA in the UK. A focus on how government policy-makers and practitioners in victim support services and criminal justice agencies can interpret and act upon my findings is a key aim of the fellowship.