Opinions This is a debate post. The post expresses the writer’s views.
I wrote before the holiday that I had never seen so many court cases about honor killings and gross mistreatment as in recent months (Nettavisen 19/6). The annual report for 2022 from the Competence Team, which works with such matters, also shows a large increase. In 2022, they had 891 cases, while there were 399 in 2015. It is about violence and threats, fear of forced marriage, negative social control, etc. The country groups that top the statistics are Syria with 159 cases and Somalia with 139. Then follows Iraq 105 and Pakistan with 100.
This is only the tip of the iceberg because many people do not dare to report, or hide what is happening in the family. In any case, we have a growing problem that we have not been able to address. At times there has been a lot of attention about the shameless girls and famous people’s books. But when it comes to practice, society has failed. The environments that practice honor violence and negative social control are only getting bigger. Where is it most important to introduce measures?
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1. Family immigration and establishment. It is crucial to have the resources and time to thoroughly process applications for family immigration. If not, we can get more people here who are exposed to forced marriage, arranged marriage, polygamy, child marriage, arranged marriages with strong social pressure, as well as people with a serious record of terrorism and crime. In the next round, this means a great danger that we will have more cases of honor killings and ill-treatment and other security problems.
Because there have been many complaints about slow case processing, UDI carried out a “sprint” to get rid of approx. 750 cases of family immigration and establishment, often called reunification, in a few weeks before the summer. The list must be “put lower”, as it is referred to internally. It has caused great concern among people who work with this in the police and the agency. Even cases they had given the inscription obs coercion to warn against possible forced marriages became part of the “sprint”.
Jan Bøhler
Former parliamentary representative for the Labor Party and the Center Party. He has sat on the central board of Labor Party and was leader of the Oslo Labor Party for several years. Bøhler lives in Groruddalen, and specializes in youth crime. He has been an active board member in Grorud IL for eleven years. Also sits on the board of LIM. Has written a book together with Trygve Slagsvold Vedum.
According to an anonymous message from employees in UDI, feedback has been given on what is happening, including at the general meetings every Friday for the entire directorate. Is the promise in various forums, there is great dissatisfaction among employees, especially the case handlers. And there is no shortage of feedback to top management.”
They also skipped the usual interviews where those applying for family immigration have to explain themselves to specialists from the police and UDI, and answer important in-depth questions. The work to get a secure ID in place was therefore “sprinted”. Writing a refusal wasn’t easy to get started either, because it requires extensive justification and a lot of work. All according to sources I have every reason to trust.
Admittedly, there are good reasons to reduce the processing time for family immigration, as the Civil Ombudsman has also requested. But this must not come at the expense of the requirements for proper and good case management. This can create an increased risk of a culture of honor and honor violence and threats to social security being allowed to spread. Rather, the government must equip the UDI so that they can process cases with the usual high quality within reasonable deadlines. This should be a topic before the autumn state budget in both the government and the Storting.
2. Ban on cousin marriage. In a number of the cases about honor killings and mistreatment, marriages between cousins, uncles and aunts, etc. have been part of the problem. Together with health reasons, this has helped to increase support for such a ban in recent years. The police, who work to prevent honor killings, have also requested it.
After at least twenty years of debate, in October 2020 a majority for this was finally formed in the Storting of Ap, Sp and Frp. Several other parties announced that they were in the thinking box. This summer it finally happened that on 1 July the government sent out a consultation note on the ban on cousins marrying each other.
It is also proposed to ban marriages between an aunt or uncle and a nephew or niece. In its justification, the government places great emphasis on the health risk, but the proposal will obviously also have great significance for the prevention of honor violence and negative social control. The consultation deadline is 27 September, so there are good opportunities for a legislative decision in the Storting in the first half of 2024.
3. National police effort. Uncovering and investigating cases involving crimes of honor is demanding police work. It is often very difficult to get someone to come forward and testify or explain themselves. You have to know the environments and the culture well to know how to penetrate the demands for silence and loyalty to the extended family.
Read more comments from Jan Bøhler
The different police districts have very different skills and experience with this work. But more and more cases are popping up around the country. It is Kripos that assists the districts in the most serious cases such as murder and organized crime. They should also have good enough resources to stand up in the investigation of honor killings. If not, we risk that many cases will not be dealt with thoroughly enough, and that the communities that are doing this will be allowed to continue.
It already happens to some extent that Kripos employees try to help when the police districts ask for it. But this must be put into a system so that a national contact point is established for honor-related crime and risk management of persons. They must have a separate response team that can travel out and assist, as Kripos does in murder cases. This will also lead to the spread of expertise in the districts, so the fight against honor killings will rise to a new level. If not, I’m afraid the problem will only continue to increase.
2023-08-05 14:45:49
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