Barriers to Canadian justice: immigrant Sikh women and izzat

Abstract

The concept of honour has been superficially understood in recent media coverage of the so-called ‘honour killings’ of Muslim and Punjabi-Sikh women. Drawing on qualitative socio-legal research, this paper examines the gendered significance of izzat in mediating both private and public spaces in the everyday lives of five immigrant Punjabi-Sikh women. Within the corporate family structure, Punjabi-Sikh women contribute to the continued regulation of other Punjabi-Sikh women by upholding patriarchal conceptions of izzat. Transplanted understandings of Indian law and society, coupled with Punjabi-Sikh understandings of izzat, shape these women's cultural and legal consciousness, as well as the perceived role of Canadian law. As such, the cultural importance and complexities of izzat reveal how it constrains the five women in this study from accessing the Canadian legal system with regard to personal and family problems except in violent, life-threatening circumstances.