The government welcomed the Centre’s recent honour crimes report, “Crimes of the Community: Honour-based violence in the UK”, published February this year, during a discussion Monday on the adequacy of government measures to protect victims of such violence.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Office, Lord West of Spithead, said that the government was aware it had not done enough. “We are determined to tackle so-called honour-based violence and to ensure that any gaps in services can be filled,” he told the House of Lords.
Lord West confirmed the report's finding that political correctness is preventing government bodies from tackling honour-based crime.
When asked to give his assurance that there was effective policing in all areas of the UK, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary admitted that “at times, nervousness has been felt that this behaviour might step across cultural or religious divides”.
Lord West assured the Lords that the government was taking steps to combat problems raised in the Centre’s report, such as under-reporting of honour-based crime and the lack of government funding for immigrant victims of domestic violence.
“On escape and ability to report, we have made provisions and are looking at third parties reporting these events, but there is no easy silver bullet to achieve it," Lord West said. "We are looking at and will produce proposals to ensure that victims can get some government benefits during the period before these matters are resolved."
The government was accused, however, of not providing hard solutions. Regarding forced marriages, Conservative peer Baroness Warsi asked, “Is it not time now to make forced marriages a criminal offence and to say very clearly that this will not be tolerated and people will be prosecuted for committing this offence?”
Lord West replied that the government had been advised that criminalising forced marriage would drive the problem even further underground, but said it was an “interesting debate” that deserved further consideration.
Lord West ended the discussion by reiterating the government’s commitment to tackling honour-based violence. “This is very much a crime. It is domestic violence and we want to bear down on it,” he said.
Comments (1)
Jokes!!
"criminalising forced marriage would drive the problem even further underground"
Criminalising murder also drove it underground so it is committed secretly and under the cover of darkness instead of brazenly in open daylight (until recently that is but that's a different story).
Of course it would go underground. But there would also be a lot less of it as many would be deterred and potential victims would be supported and given a weapon to use.
Posted by william | March 17, 2008 10:16 PM
Posted on March 17, 2008 22:16