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Confronting ‘Honour‘-Based Abuse: Reflections on IKWRO’s 2025 Conference

By Ladan Hashemi, Senior Lecturer in Sociology of Health and Health Policy at City St George’s University of London  

VISION was proud to sponsor their second collaboration with IKWRO (Women’s Rights Organisation) and host their annual conference. This year’s theme was Confronting ‘Honour‘-Based Abuse (HBA) in Policy, Technology, and Collective Action and held at City St George’s, University of London on 22nd October 2025. 

The event brought together around a hundred survivor advocates, academics, frontline practitioners, and policymakers to critically examine urgent responses to HBA in today’s rapidly evolving world. 

The conference featured three panels examining the flagship “Crime, Not Culture” campaign, the growing role of technology and media in shaping harm, and the resilience and leadership of survivors and community advocates. Throughout the day, speakers and attendees returned to a central question: How do we ensure HBA is recognised and treated as a serious crime rather than dismissed or misunderstood as ‘culture’?

Narratives, Evidence, and the Power of Speaking Out

The day opened with powerful survivor testimonies – deeply personal accounts of control, coercion and systemic failures. These stories underscored the  need for meaningful training across policing, healthcare and the family courts. As one panel chair reflected, “It’s not that the government lacks the budget. It’s about priorities. Women from ethnic minorities are not a priority.” The consequences of this neglect, she noted, echo across public services, placing a substantial and avoidable burden on institutions such as the NHS and the police.

Scholars challenged common assumptions about “culture” and emphasised the importance of evidence-informed policy. Their discussions invited the audience to interrogate the ways colonial narratives have shaped understandings of honour, family, and gender norms. 

Technology, Media, and Emerging Threats

The second panel explored the fast-changing digital landscape. Speakers examined how technology-facilitated abuse, sextortion, online misogyny, and surveillance increasingly interact with HBA. The panel highlighted that marginalised women and girls often face compounded risks: gendered, racialised, and technologically amplified. 

Two short animations produced by the Women’s Research Hub team in collaboration with VISION, on HBA and sextortion were screened during the session. These visual narratives helped ground the discussion in the lived realities of young people navigating online harms – showing not just the risks, but also how digital tools can be used to educate, empower, and support.

One speaker captured the spirit of the day: “It seems it wasn’t enough to be oppressed by patriarchal systems; now we also face the same inequalities reflected back at us through AI and social media.” 

Collective Action and Pathways to Change 

The final panel focused on resilience and community action. Speakers discussed the importance of survivor leadership, culturally informed practice, and training that centres real voices rather than “death by PowerPoint.” Their reflections highlighted that effective change relies on collaboration between organisations, communities, and those with lived experience. 

The conference closed with remarks from Jess Phillips MP, who reinforced the urgent need to strengthen protections and ensure survivors are heard and believed. Her contribution was a fitting conclusion to a day centred on solidarity, listening, and the collective responsibility to challenge harmful practices and support those affected.

One of the quilts created by survivors of ‘honour’-based abuse and IKWRO

A Day of Reflection and Resolve 

The event showcased what happens when survivors, activists, academics, and practitioners come together with a shared purpose. Across panels, one message was clear: understanding and preventing ‘Honour‘-Based Abuse requires research, policy attention, resources, and above all, a commitment to centring the voices of those most affected. 

VISION was proud to support this important gathering for a second time sparking further conversations about how evidence and collaboration can drive meaningful, long-lasting change.

Key to the event was the organisation and support of VISION’s Knowledge Exchange Manager, Kimberly Cullen and the IKWRO conference organising committee. 

For further information, please contact Ladan at ladan.hashemi@citystgeorges.ac.uk

Photography supplied by IKWRO

New Animated Campaign Raises Awareness of ‘Honour’-Based Abuse

By Ladan Hashemi, Senior Lecturer in Sociology of Health and Health Policy at City St George’s University of London  

A new animation created by the Women’s Research Hub in collaboration with VISION aims to shed light on ‘Honour’-Based Abuse (HBA), a pervasive form of violence targeting women and girls. Informed by research and survey data on violence against women in Iran, this is the fifth animation in the Hub’s series on gender-based violence (GBV). The survey underpinning this work was designed by Fatima Babakhani, CEO of the safe house Mehre Shams Afarid in Iran.

HBA is widespread both in Iran and globally. Studies indicate that thousands of women and girls in Iran experience coercion, forced marriage, and other forms of abuse in the name of “honour.” Globally, HBA affects communities across the Middle East, South Asia, North Africa, and diaspora populations worldwide, often remaining hidden due to social stigma and cultural justifications. While reliable statistics are difficult to obtain because of underreporting, research shows that the consequences are severe: psychological trauma, physical violence, and, in extreme cases, death. The Centre for Human Rights in Iran reported that in 2024 at least 179 women in Iran were killed — roughly a woman every two days — a significant proportion of them as a result of so-called ‘honour’ killings. 

The animation presents real-life narratives, capturing the lived experiences of women subjected to HBA. Through carefully constructed scenes, it depicts situations such as family-imposed restrictions on women’s clothing and mobility, threats, humiliation, forced and child marriage, and the devastating consequences of upholding “honour” through coercion, including physical violence and ‘honour’-based killings. 

Some of the impactful transcripts featured in the animation include: 

Forced marriage: “They said there had been too many rumours about her, so her family forced her to marry.”

‘Honour’– Based Killing: “His brothers came, one by one, saying: ‘You’ve protected your honour. You’ve spared us all the shame.”

The animation brings these testimonies to life with a sensitive and empathetic approach, allowing viewers to understand the psychological and social dynamics of HBA, as well as its human impact. It emphasises that ‘honour’ is never a justification for violence: “No one is another person’s ‘honour’. ‘Honour’ is lost when we turn to violence — not when a woman chooses to live her life on her own terms.” 

The campaign also provides clear guidance for bystanders and communities on how to respond: 

  1. Avoid judging others’ private lives — everyone has the right to make choices about their body, relationships, and lifestyle. 
  2. Support victims of HBA without blame, and do not leave them isolated. 
  3. Be mindful of language: words like “honour,” “shame,” and “purity” can reinforce harmful norms. 
  4. Do not share private information or images that could endanger someone. 
  5. Speak up if you believe someone is at risk and contact trusted organisations. 

The animation was produced in collaboration with animators in Iran, experts supporting women affected by HBA in Iran, Fatima Babakhani, and the UK-based NGO IKWRO, which supports victims of HBA in the UK. 

The research team included colleagues Dr Ladan Hashemi and Professor Sally McManus from City St George’s University of London; Associate Professor Nadia Aghtaie at the University of Bristol; Dr Atlas Torbati from Goldsmiths University; Professor Birgitta Hosea from the Animation Research Centre at the University for the Creative Arts; and Dorreh Khatibi-Hill from Leeds Beckett University. The project was funded by the UKPRP VISION Consortium and the ESRC Impact Acceleration Award at the University of Bristol.

The animation will be officially launched on the Women’s Research Hub Instagram page during the 16 Days of Activism Against GBV, providing an important opportunity to reach a global audience and raise awareness of HBA. Ladan and colleagues will also be discussing the campaign at a free lunchtime webinar on Monday, 8 December. For further information and to register for the Teams link, please see Webinar: Using animation to campaign against VAWG.

Previous animations in the series have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times, narrated in multiple languages as well as subtitled, and it has been used in classrooms and at other events. We encourage its widespread use to improve awareness, and one animation in the series provides bystanders with potential strategies for safe intervention. 

By combining rigorous research, authentic survivor narratives, and creative storytelling, this animation series offers a powerful tool for raising awareness and driving action against GBV. It is a vital reminder that combating GBV requires both evidence-informed strategies and a commitment to amplifying the voices of those most affected. 

Link to Women’s Research Hub YouTube Channel 

Link to Women’s Research Hub Instagram Account  

For further information, please contact Ladan at ladan.hashemi@citystgeorges.ac.uk

Researching the impact of Black and Asian women leadership within East of England domestic abuse services

The East of England is a region with minimal presence of ‘by and for’ (BFR) domestic abuse (DA) specialist services despite being home to Black and Asian communities. A VISION-funded research project, ‘Nothing about us without us’: Investigating the impact of the leadership of ethnic minority women on domestic abuse service provision in East England’, is exploring the impact of the leadership of Black and Asian women within DA service provision in the region.

As part of the work, researchers Dr Mirna Guha (Anglia Ruskin University) and Dr Katherine Allen (University of Suffolk), hosted a leadership event on 3 April 2025 for racially and culturally diverse women. Held at a venue provided by the City of London police, the event was part of a leadership programme implemented through the HUM (‘Us) : A Place-based Emerging-Leaders Model designed and piloted by Mirna and Katherine to diversify leadership in domestic abuse and sexual violence services. Research aims include ensuring culturally responsive and representative support for minoritised victims-survivors in East England.

Prior to the April event, Mirna and Katherine researched the leadership needs of 19 overstretched frontline practitioners i.e. ‘emerging leaders’ from racialised communities working within White-majority and at times professionally isolating generalist services across Bedfordshire, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. East England is home to scattered racialised and diasporic communities where women’s leadership in local politics and policymaking is low. Based on this, three events on trauma-informed, culturally responsive and diverse styles of leadership have been co-produced with national DASV experts. Participants were invited to also join a regionally pioneering Community of Practice (CoP).

At the April event in London, 15 emerging leaders from racialised backgrounds gained insights into the strategies, opportunities and challenges of practising culturally and racially representative leadership through an inspiring keynote by Superintendent Jasvinder Kaur, Domestic Abuse Lead at Suffolk Constabulary and co-founder of the National Women of Colour in Policing network. Furthermore, nine Black and racialised women speakers associated with statutory institutions viz. Cambridge City Council and the National Police Chief’s Council.

Voluntary organisations also spoke including Apna Haq in Rotherham, Asian Women’s Resource Centre in London, and Karim Foundation in Cambridge. Others also shared their experiences of navigating rural and predominantly White spaces, and their strategies for claiming space, giving voice to community members and creating opportunities for other culturally and racially diverse women leaders. One notable theme was the pathbreaking role each panellist had assumed during her career, opening (or at times creating) doors for herself and those who followed. Discussions across the day dwelled on temporality and the changing political landscapes as well as place-based challenges linked to rurality.

Overall, the leadership model, including this event and others and the growing leadership CoP, with a current membership of 25 emerging women leaders, aims to address these contextual and temporal challenges by bolstering and diversifying racialised women’s leadership in public services to ensure equity for minoritised victims-survivors.

By laying the groundwork for a regional advisory board through the CoP, the model challenges the epistemic erasure of racially and culturally minoritised women within the design of DASV, and broadly, public services which exacerbate the postcode lottery of services across England and Wales. Inspired by Pawson and Tilley’s (1997)[1] approach to realist evaluation (which seeks to understand what works for whom and in which circumstances) Mirna and Katherine aim to evaluate the impact of the leadership programme and CoP on how emerging leaders navigate specific challenges rooted in specific professional, relational and spatial contexts.

[1] Pawson, R. and Tilley, N., 1997. Realistic evaluation.

For further information, please contact Mirna at mirna.guha@aru.ac.uk

Photograph courtesy of Dr Mirna Guha and Dr Katherine Allen.

A Scoping Review: Black and Minoritized Women’s Experiences of Specialist Domestic Violence Services in the UK

Domestic violence and abuse (DVA) harms individuals from all backgrounds, yet the experiences and needs of different communities vary significantly. The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) estimated that over 1.4 million women and 751,000 men experienced DVA in the year ending March 2023. Black and minoritized women may face heightened vulnerability to DVA due to factors such as socio-economic deprivation, racism, and exposure to specific forms of violence such as so-called honor-based abuse, female genital mutilation or forced marriage.

In addition, minoritized “survivor–victims” of DVA may face intersecting challenges within their socio-political and community context that impede their ability to disclose DVA and may experience social stigma and fears of racism from service providers for example.

This scoping review maps the existing available literature on Black and minoritized women’s experiences with specialist DVA services in the UK to summarize current understanding and identify knowledge gaps.

The research team, comprised of Penelope E. Lowe from University of Roehampton, VISION researchers Sally McManus, Ravi K. Thiara, Estela Capelas Barbosa and Ladan Hashemi, and Pardis Asadi Zeidabadi from City St George’s UoL, and Sumanta Roy of Imkaan and a VISION Advisory Board member, conducted a comprehensive search across multiple databases and gray literature sources. 

Thematic analysis of the findings revealed three main themes: additional service needs, barriers to accessing support, and the pivotal role of “by and for” services. The team concluded that “by and for” services—provided by and for minoritized women—which adopt an intersectional approach are crucial in addressing the unique needs of Black and minoritized “survivor–victims”, particularly in terms of language support, practical assistance, and community-related support. There is a need for more peer-reviewed literature to recognize the role of “by and for” services, using diverse methodologies to support Black and minoritized communities better.

To download the article: Black and Minoritized Women’s Experiences of Specialist Domestic Violence Service in the United Kingdom (UK): A Scoping Review

To cite: Lowe, P. E., McManus, S., Asadi Zeidabadi, P., Thiara, R. K., Roy, S., Capelas Barbosa, E., & Hashemi, L. (2025). Black and Minoritized Women’s Experiences of Specialist Domestic Violence Services in the United Kingdom (UK): A Scoping Review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 0(0).  https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380251335038

For further information, please contact Penelope at penelope.lowe@rutgers.edu

Illustration from Adobe Photo Stock subscription