Honour crimes towards women are one of the most harmful and damaging forms of gender inequality. Honour crimes meet almost all of the target criteria that the UN has set, yet the term 'honour crime' is not mentioned explicitly as a target Sustainable Development Goal or in the UN Handbook of Indicators and a Monitoring Framework for the Sustainable Development Goals. Hence, the UN Sustainable Development Goal targets do not help to tackle all forms of honour crimes. 

 

In the first Sustainable Development Goal target ''eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls in the public and private sphere, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation", the handbook was only concerned with measuring the occurrence of violence against girls and women by intimate partners. But, honour crimes include sexual and violent offences committed by their family member, extended family and cultural community, not just an intimate partner. 

 

The only honour crime that was discussed was FGM, but the handbook is still lacking more efficient ways to assess improvement. It stated primary data household surveys as the main way of checking progress.

 

These UN Sustainable Development Goal targets are a collection of the most pressing issues of our time. Therefore, these targets must also include honour crimes explicitly as honour crimes are a very pressing issue which has had and will continue to have devastating consequences for its victims. 

 

How can honour crimes be addressed in the UK, if it not even recognised explicitly by the UN?

 

Sources:  Indicators and a Monitoring Framework for the Development goals
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/index.php?page=view&type=400&nr=2013&menu=35