Samenvatting

There is a tendency to put honour-based and domestic violence in the same box. This article examines whether this is correct or not. The perception of the two phenomena share a number of similarities: violence that often occurs in the context of the family and, in many cases, complex issues that have already been at play for some time. Furthermore, the perception is that primarily women are the victims of both domestic and honour-based violence. A big difference is that the term domestic violence refers to the social context where violence is taking place and the term honour-based refers to the motive for violent action or threats. A complicating factor is that hurt feelings of honour might provoke violence or threats in the context of the family. In research literature it is assumed that domestic violence occurs at all levels of society, which means that this phenomenon will also be encountered amongst ethnic minorities. It is striking that domestic violence amongst ethnic minorities is often mentioned in the same breath as honour-based violence. However, both phenomena deserve a different approach. The risks of treating domestic violence as an honour case and honour-based violence as domestic abuse are described.