Abstract
Since July 1st, 2020, honour is viewed as an aggravating circumstance in criminal cases in Sweden, and it is suggested that honour related violence and oppression should become a criminal offence in its own right. Interventions directed towards victims of honour crimes have been implemented, but fewer have targeted the offenders. The purpose of this article is to mirror the Swedish legal and discursive framework against the perspective of the perpetrators. While we discuss findings with relevance for practitioners, particularly in the light of recent legislative changes, our main focus is set on subjective understandings of honour crimes. In particular, questions about the perpetrators’ norms and worldviews, their perceptions of the concept of honour, and their experiences of the Swedish justice system are investigated. Using court verdicts and deep interviews, we highlight important themes under the following four headlines: (1) Collectivism, norms, and traditions, (2) Complexities of honour crimes, (3) Marginalization, social vulnerability, and stereotyping, and (4) Reflections in retrospect. This article gives insight into some of the complexities that courts will have to handle given the recent and pending changes in Swedish legislation and provides knowledge that can be implemented in social and legal work to combat honour related violence and oppression.
Highlights
Honour related violence and oppression has been a recurring theme within political and social work in Sweden during the last decades
The results of the analysis of verdicts and interviews are summarised under four thematic headlines: Collectivism, norms, and traditions; Complexities of honour crimes; Marginalization, social vulnerability, and stereotyping; and Reflections in retrospect, which is based solely on interviews since it focuses on the perpetrators’ processes of change during incarceration
We have shown how honour violence, albeit based in patriarchal traditions, sometimes defies the traditional understanding of gender roles through male victims and female perpetrators
Summary
Honour related violence and oppression has been a recurring theme within political and social work in Sweden during the last decades. Since July 1st, 2020, honour is viewed as an aggravating circumstance in criminal cases in Sweden (Government Bill 2019/20:131). The Government Bill states that honour related crimes are a violation of human rights. Against this background, the government states that there should be a possibility to assign a higher penal value for crimes based on notions of family honour. Forced and child marriages have been targeted through recent legislative changes, and the government has recently presented a proposal to make honour related violence and oppression a criminal offence in its own right.
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