Since this section deals with criminal law and is written by a researcher with a Swedish background, the term ‘specified honour crime’ will be used instead of the collective term ‘honour-based violence and oppression’, i.e. the criminal classification used in Swedish criminal law to define a specific offence since 1 June 2022 (Prop. 2021/22:138). Unless otherwise stated, ‘specified honour crime’ corresponds to the terms used in the Swedish and Finnish contexts, ‘honour-based violence’ and ‘honour-based violence and oppression’ respectively, and the term used in the Danish, Norwegian and, to some extent, Finnish contexts, ‘negative social control’.
From a criminal law perspective, the debate on specified honour crimes in Nordic countries involves a number of specific acts or phenomena that are assumed to be honour-based, although the emphasis differs somewhat between countries. At the heart of the debate is the assumption that honour can serve as a motive for various crimes that fall under general criminal law, such as unlawful threats, assault of varying degrees of severity, unlawful deprivation of liberty and murder. This stems from a social debate that originally arose in the 1990s, aiming to ‘explain’ or ‘rationalise’ the underlying causes of individual crimes for which the patterns of victims and perpetrators did not correspond to ‘normal’ crimes committed in family contexts (Johansson, 2005; Englund & Larsson, 2004; Guillou, 1997). The debate on the underlying causes of this eventually led to the conclusion in Sweden that the causes could be summarised under a so-called motive for crime, i.e. that the mindset preceding the actions could be described as honour related (Rosquist, 2022, 2020; Norée, 2022; see also Lernestedt, 2006). For a number of years now, there has therefore been a basis in Sweden for imposing harsher penalties for criminal acts believed to stem from a motive of honour, and there is now a specific legal provision for ‘specified honour crimes’. In Denmark and Norway, there are similar trends towards imposing harsher penalties for honour-based crimes than for similar crimes committed in other family contexts, even though these countries have not yet legislated honour as a specific crime. Instead, these countries have chosen to identify and impose relatively harsher penalties for crimes associated with honour, such as forced marriage and female circumcision/genital cutting. See, for example, Chap. 4 § 4e of the Swedish Penal Code or the inclusion of specific honour-based crimes in the general grounds for increased penalties in the Danish Penal Code, for example in §§ 81a, 81c and 114a.
Finland and Iceland are characterised by less harsh processes with regard to criminal legislation against honour-based crimes, although, as the review below shows, Iceland has recently begun to move towards more specific legislation. The autonomous regions of the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland have not drafted any specific criminal laws with regard to specified honour crimes. Åland applies Finnish criminal law. Faroese legislation has been officially drafted independently by the Løgting since 2010, but criminal law essentially consists of a Faroese translation of the Danish Criminal Code. Greenland is characterised to an even greater extent by its independence from Denmark; the review below concludes that no honour-based legislation exists in Greenland (Nyborg Lauritzen, 2019).
The debate also highlights a number of more specific acts that have come to be associated with honour over time. Based on previous research and the research in this study, it is possible to identify four distinct types of honour-based acts: child and forced marriage (Idriss, 2022), female genital cutting (Yoza, 2022), clothing restrictions (Davary, 2009) – referred to in media discourse as ‘compulsory veiling’ – and conversion attempts in relation to sexualities and gender identities outside of the norm (MUCF, 2022).
Finally, it should be mentioned that Sweden is currently the only country in the world with criminal legislation that directly identifies honour motives as a prerequisite for a specific criminal classification, although similar criminal legislation exists in Denmark. However, it is only in Sweden that defines ‘specified honour crimes’ as directly linked to honour practices. In Denmark, violations in a family context that can be attributed to ‘negative social control’ are punishable by imprisonment for up to three years, but the criminal classification is ‘psychological violence’ rather than specified honour crimes or similar.
In recent debates in particular, discussions have been held over travel bans, primarily for minors, in connection with suspected preparations for forced marriages as well as so-called ‘re-education trips’, when it is assumed that a young person will be forced to undergo schooling under strict conditions in their family’s country of origin (see Lebedeva’s study in the previous section). However, the issue of travel bans is treated predominantly as an issue of social law in the Nordic countries. There is therefore no criminal liability for arranging such a trip unless it falls under the scope of the crimes of forced marriage or attempted conversion. Instead, regulation is achieved through the imposition of travel bans, which are enforced by border control authorities with respect to an individual’s passport. The regulation is therefore imposed on the travel documents of the potential victim, not on a suspected perpetrator.
In most of the Nordic countries, re-education trips are considered a matter for authorities responsible for crime prevention and children’s right to a safe school environment. This issue is therefore only of peripheral importance in the context of this criminal law review, except in Denmark/the Faroe Islands, where such trips are punishable by law.
In summary, this study will focus on acts that are punishable through fines, imprisonment or equivalent penalties. Acts that fall under social law and other administrative law regulations will be addressed in certain cases but are not the main area of focus. With reference to the above, the searches have focused on criminal law, i.e. the Swedish Criminal Code and the linguistic equivalent of the Criminal Code in other countries. Searches have also been made for legislation related to the other honour-based acts presented above that are categorised as crimes, i.e. female genital cutting/circumcision, child and forced marriage, clothing restrictions (compulsory veiling), re-education trips and conversion attempts. Specific legal provisions outside the Criminal Code have also been identified here. For example, some countries have specific legislation on female genital cutting, while others classify the act as assault under a section of the Criminal Code. For forced and child marriages, searches have also been conducted of the marriage legislation of each country to investigate further legal consequences in the event of established offences, primarily with regard to the validity of the marriage.