Who are the guidelines for?
This guideline is intended for professionals in healthcare and social welfare, early childhood education and care and schools, as well as other professionals who encounter individuals involved in honour-related violence in their work.
The guideline includes recommended practices. It helps you to recognise the phenomenon, bring it up in conversation and intervene in the situation.
What is honour-related violence?
Honour-related violence refers to collective violence carried out with the intention of preserving or restoring honour. In honour-related violence, a family, extended family or other community violently controls an individual, accusing them of behaviour considered to violate norms or dishonour the family.
Honour-related violence occurs in different cultures around the world. It is rooted in a communal, often unequal and male-dominated value system where the interests of the community are considered more important than the rights of the individual.
Honour-related violence most often targets:
- girls and women,
- people belonging to sexual and gender minorities,
- people seeking to leave religious communities or marriages,
- young people.
Boys and men can also be subject to honour-related violence, especially in situations where they are pressured to use violence or belong to a sexual or gender minority.
Recognise the signs of honour-related violence
Honour-related violence often manifests as gender-based intimate partner violence. Typically, honour-related violence involves psychological abuse and coercive control.
Honour-related violence may manifest as:
- pressure, threats, coercion, restrictions, isolation and stalking
- varying degrees of physical, sexual, digital or economic violence
- forced marriage or preventing divorce
- female genital mutilation
- forced suicide or murder.
In practice, honour-related violence may appear as:
- restrictions on spending time outside the home, attending hobbies or meeting friends
- strict monitoring of phone and internet use
- threats of being sent to another country
- prohibition of studying or working
- sending a child or young person abroad against their will under the pretext of educational purposes.
Honour-related violence may result in different physical and psychological symptoms, such as repeated injuries or bruises with no clear explanation, chronic pain, psychosomatic symptoms, unexplained ailments, infections, sleep difficulties, memory problems, challenges with concentration, anxiety and depression. A person experiencing honour-related violence may always be accompanied by another person at professional appointments, cancel appointments or fail to show up in booked consultations.
There may be several perpetrators, and they may exert pressure on one another. Some perpetrators may also live outside Finland. Honour-related violence is more often a series of events than a single act.
The victim of honour-related violence is in an extremely vulnerable position. Alienation from one’s community and family may mean that the person loses everyone close to them. The victim may have a high threshold for reporting the violence they have experienced and may not always even recognise it as violence.
Address the issue
It is the professional’s responsibility to intervene in violence. It is important to address violence at an early stage, as it often becomes more severe over time. However, do not assume that the violence is honour-related solely based on the client’s cultural background; instead, find out what is happening. Always take the client’s concerns seriously, as situations involving honour-related violence can escalate quickly.
Use a trauma-informed and culturally sensitive approach.
Examine the client’s experiences of honour-related violence as follows:
- Find out in advance how situations involving violence are handled in your municipality or wellbeing services county.
- Arrange a private moment with the client during the appointment without the presence of the person accompanying them.
- When you need an interpreter, you should only use an authorised interpreter who is not a relative of the client. Take into account the client’s preference regarding the interpreter’s gender.
- Aim to build a trusting and respectful relationship with the client and ask them about violence in private.
- Ask open-ended questions so the client can describe incidents in their own words
- Record and document the client’s account carefully. Delay the publication of the patient records or document entries you make.
- To support risk assessment and documentation, you can use the forms listed below with clients over 18 years of age.
Examples of open-ended questions:
- Do you get to be yourself and live the life you want? If not, what obstacles do you face?
- Are there rules in your family that concern you and your siblings? What happens if you break them?
- Are you allowed to use the internet, spend time outside the home, attend hobbies, or choose your friends like other people your age?
- Do you feel safe?
- Are you worried or afraid? About what?
Forms and tools:
- Domestic violence enquiry and assessment form
- Domestic violence risk assessment form (MARAC)
- Personal Safety Plan
- Risk sssessment for harassment and stalking
- Assault and body map form (PAKE)
- VALIANT tool for assessing vulnerability to violent radicalisation and support needs
Provide support, refer client to services and file a report if necessary
- Ensure the client’s safety, provide sufficient information and explain your actions in a way that is easy for the client to understand.
- Create a safety plan. Give the client information about services intended for victims of violence, such as Nollalinja and shelters, as well as organisations.
Nollalinja helpline (Nollalinja.fi)
Shelters Shelters for victims of domestic violence (Nollalinja.fi) - File a child welfare report on anyone under 18. Information on filing a child welfare notification
Child welfare notification - File a police report if violence has been directed at a minor or if the client is at risk of violence. Help an adult client file a criminal report, or do it yourself if the violence is severe. You can always consult the police without disclosing the client’s identity.
Duty to notify violence against a child: submitting a notification to the police - If you suspect a trip abroad that is against the best interests of a child or young person, report it to the child welfare services and the police’s preventive youth work, Anchor work.
Contact details for Anchor work operators (Ankkuritoiminta.fi) - In urgent cases, notify the police (112), who can, in cooperation with the border authorities, prevent the person from leaving the country. If a child remains absent from school for an extended period without explanation, file a child welfare notification and notify the police that the child has gone missing from education.
- Refer the client to your local MARAC working group.
About MARAC working groups: Multi-agency risk assessment - Always set a follow-up appointment with the client to return to the matter and monitor progress. Even where there is only suspicion or concern that something may be happening, you can return to the matter later.
Remember your rights and obligations to report the threat of violence to the police. If necessary, you can also consult the police about further measures without providing specific personal details.
In acute situations, always call 112.
Perpetrator of honour-related violence
Remember that your clients may also include perpetrators of honour-related violence. The perpetrator may be, for example, the victim’s former spouse or a relative, such as the victim’s mother or sibling. When working with perpetrators, pay particular attention to the following:
- Encounter the client in a friendly and respectful manner and show that you are interested in helping them with their situation.
- Assess the client’s individual situation and possible support needs. In addition to community-related factors, individual aspects such as psychosocial challenges may contribute to the risk of violence. If necessary, prepare a comprehensive plan for services together with the client, taking into account multi-professional cooperation.
- Note that your client may not be the only perpetrator involved in the situation. They may, for example, pressure others to commit honour-related violence or be under pressure themselves.
- Refer the client to discuss their own behavioural patterns and their impact with an appropriate professional. In counselling discussions, where appropriate, apply methods such as motivational interviewing.
Motivational interviewing (in Finnish) - If necessary, inform the client about Finland’s criminal law and reflect their actions in relation to it.
- Arrange an escorted transfer between workers if possible, when the client is transferred to another professional (for example, a joint meeting between you, the new worker and the client).
- Pay attention to signs indicating that the violence may continue. For example, does the client’s speech towards the victim sound threatening ,or do the things they say indicate that they may be planning violence or, for instance, a trip abroad that is contrary to the victim’s interests?
- Inform the client about data processing, confidentiality obligations and statutory reporting duties.
THL’s role
THL is a national expert in violence prevention. We support wellbeing services counties and professionals in social and health care by providing guidelines, recommendations, tools, and training. We also develop structures for violence prevention and coordinate collaboration in the field.
Contact details
Senior Specialist
tel. +358 29 524 7554
[email protected]
Specialist
[email protected]