'Honour': CRIMES, PARADIGMS, AND VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Lynn Welchman is a Senior Lecturer in Islamic Law at the Law Department of the School of Oriental and African Studies, and with Sara Hossain is Co-Director of the CIMEL/INTERIGHTS 'Crimes of Honour' Project. She was formerly the Director of the Centre of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law (CIMEL) at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Prior to her academic appointment, she worked with the Palestinian NGO human rights movements, and has also undertake work for international human rights organizations.

Sara Hossain is a barrister practising at the High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, and with Dr Lynn Welchman is Co-Director of the CIMEL/INTERIGHTS 'Crimes of Honour' Project. She has worked on a number of cases of abduction of British/Bangladeshi women by their parents for the purposes of forced marriage and has written and spoken widely on forced marriage. From 1997 to 2003, she was the Legal Officer for South Asia at the International Centre for the Legal protection of Human Rights (INTERIGHTS), London.

About the Book

'Honour' brings together the practical insights and experience of individuals and organizations working in diverse regions and contexts to combat 'crimes of honour'. The authors examine strategies of response to such manifestations of violence against women, focusing largely on 'honour killings' and interference with the right to choice in marriage, and the right to choice in marriage, and the related use and legal treatment of the defence of 'honour' and 'provocation' in different countries of Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and South Asia. This timely book is distinctive in approach and content, highlighting activist and practice-oriented academic perspectives from both the South and the North.

The authors give voice to the struggle to locate 'crimes of honour' firmly within the international framework of violence against women and human rights, rather than positioning these abuses as specific to particular cultures or communities. The first of its kind, this book serves as a resource in addressing 'honour crimes' and, more broadly, violence against women, and will be of interest to a multi-disciplinary academic audience as well as lawyers, policy-makers and activists.