The Dutch police has noticed that in cases of honour-based violence often people are involved that might suffer from some form of trauma. Over the last years the police has dealt with cases from, for example, refugees that have fled from with war infected regions. Next to that, the road to the north of Europe was also involved with serious safety issues. Therefore the police works together with specialists in the treatment of trauma. In this article some frequently encountered misunderstandings about trauma are described, illustrated with cases of honour-based violence. The first misunderstanding is that all trauma is PTSS; the second is that PTSD explains all the mis happenings in an individual’s life; the third misunderstanding is that EMDR is the effective treatment for all sorts of trauma.

Violence in the name of the honour of the family and human trafficking are considered to be different phenomena. But in the impressive body of literature on both types of crime and as seen by specialists from the Dutch National Police, some indications can be found that there is a toxic relationship between the two forms of delinquency: human traffickers can call on the family-honour of their victims in order to blackmail them into prostitution and to keep them working in that field against their will.

In this exploratory study, two questions are addressed. Firstly, examining police files on honour based violence (HBV), do we find conflicts that take place in asylum centers, and if so, what can we learn from those files? Secondly, to what extent can these police files provide insight into the role of HBV in the lives of refugees in the Netherlands? What are the possibilities and limitations and how can they be dealt with in future research?
We apply the importation and deprivation models within total institutions on asylum centers and zoom in on honour based conflicts within these centers. The conflicts revolved around family life and morality issues, and resulted in both threats and physical violence. Among younger victims, their choice of partner was the main stumbling block, while later in the course of life conflicts arose from divorces and new relationships. Distinguishing between importation and deprivation factors within these HBV cases turned out to be difficult for two reasons. Firstly, within Dutch policy HBV is primarily viewed as violence within (extended) families and often originating from conflicts regarding partner choice and morality. This focus corresponds to importation rather than deprivation. Secondly, many cases showed interaction between the two factors, for example the many different backgrounds of the inhabitants of the asylum center can be viewed as both importation and deprivation. Future research should look into (a combination of) different data sources to shed light on the role of deprivation, because deprivational factors are more susceptible for (short term) policy measures to help prevent unnecessary stress and causes of conflict, whether honour based or not.

To improve the way honour cases are dealt with by the Dutch police, a national centre of expertise, the LEC EGG, was set up. When complex cases are at hand, the LEC EGG offers nationwide assistance to the regional police units. In this contribution the authors look into the use of the analysis by the LEC EGG in the courtroom. What role does analysis by the LEC EGG of honour-based violence have in the court’s decision making?

People have all kinds of dependency relationships, for example in family life and on the work floor. Since almost a decade, the Dutch government uses the term ‘violence in dependency relationships’ for all kinds of violence that are applied in these dependency relationships: domestic violence, honour-based violence, child abuse, abuse of the elderly, abuse by professionals for example in homes for children or the elderly and violence related to prostitution and the trafficking of humans. In this article an overview is given that demonstrates how in all these forms of violence elements of cybercrime can be recognized.

Honour-based violence (HBV) is a tight knot of conflict, gender and ethnicity. It is also the sensational subject of many bestselling books, in which mostly female victims of HBV tell their life stories. Researchers of feminism and multiculturalism argue that migrant women are often presented as passive victims, and migrant men as violent perpetrators. In our first article for PROCES on this subject, we analysed ten (auto)biographies of female victims of HBV, using theoretical insights on stigmatization. After the publication of this article, we continued to collect these true life stories. In our current article, we analyse two new aspects: how do these stories find their way to the Internet, and are there any HBV stories by male authors? Do stories by male authors shed a different light on honour conflicts and on stereotypes of culture and gender?

In the Netherlands honour based violence is often associated with cases that take place in a Turkish context. But honour codes can be found all over the world. In order to develop a more profound understanding of honour based violence it is therefore important to study this phenomenon in different social and cultural circumstances. In this contribution attention is paid towards the experiences of young men from Curaçao that live on the fringes of Dutch society. How do they perceive honour and the relationship with the use of violence?

This article sheds light on an aspect of honour-based violence (HBV) that is rarely addressed: male victimisation. HBV is usually regarded as violence inflicted on women by men. Police cases of male victimisation of HBV and scarce literature on this subject illustrate the ways in which men can become victims of violence. Men can be victimised in the same way that women are, for example when they commit adultery, are openly homosexual, or through conflicts about the choice of a partner. A specific and contested form of male victimisation occurs when their families pressure them to commit violence in order to restore family honour. Men are less likely than women to claim victim status and their victimisation of HBV is therefore possibly underreported. The authors do not argue to neglect female victims, but to expand hegemonic images of HBV and gender roles to include male victimisation. More insight into these matters is necessary to ensure the right support for each victim of HBV and to enable men and women to resolve these conflicts together.

How can police officers make use of citizens’ religious beliefs when dealing with cases of honour-based violence (HBV)? In this article religion is addressed regarding motive and legitimisation of violence and as a social network of people and institutions for communities of believers. We focus on Islamic religion, because most cases of HBV handled by the police take place within Islamic communities and because the Dutch public debate on religion revolves around Islam. We interviewed police officers with expertise on HBV. These officers have an instrumental vision on religion. It helps them to gain insight in motives for violence and it offers opportunities for conflict mediation and coping with the aftermath of HBV.

Honour based violence has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years in the Dutch public debate. However, given that honour can be damaged and restored in many ways, defining this kind of violence is rather difficult. The term honour based violence is an umbrella concept. This article explains how, within this concept, the relationship between religion and violence in the name of honour is understood.

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.