Analysis of legislation
Structure of the analysis
This section provides a comparative analysis of honour-based legislation in the Nordic countries and autonomous regions. The analysis begins with a comparison of the legal provisions that exist in all countries and autonomous regions (except Greenland). It then addresses the legal provisions that are only applied by individual countries and regions. The analysis is based on the information presented in Table 1 above. An overarching question that characterises the analysis is how individuals and groups who practise honour-based violence are positioned through the wording of legislation. The analysis focuses on how assumptions about gender and sexuality appear in the wording of crimes definitions and sentencing.
Particular attention is also paid to whether the focus of legislation is punishing perpetrators or drawing attention to and providing redress for victims of crime. In respect to the latter, one aspect is highlighting the severity of punishment for each crime in the respective country/region.
Forced marriage and child marriage compared
All countries and territories except Greenland criminalise both forced marriage and child marriage. Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Norway and Sweden use both terms in their criminal legislation, while Finland and Iceland classify them as human trafficking, although Iceland’s hegningalög (General Penal Code) also features the term nauðungarhjónaband (forced marriage). In Sweden, misleading someone into travel for the purposes of marriage is also defined as a separate crime.
Across the Nordic countries, the strictest possible penalty – imprisonment for up to twelve years – is found in Iceland’s General Penal Code; the strictest minimum penalty for human trafficking of a normal degree is imprisonment for four months, as applicable in Finnish and Ålandic law. In Iceland, human trafficking involving a child may also be grounds for a more severe penalty, which should mean, at least in theory, that it would be possible to impose a prison sentence of more than twelve years. The lightest minimum penalty is a fine, as appears in Danish law.
The penalties for forced and child marriage vary somewhat between countries and regions. The penalties are slightly lower for forced marriage than child marriage in all countries except Denmark/Faroe Islands, where the maximum penalty for forced marriage is twice as high as for child marriage (four and two years, respectively). Iceland stands out as having the highest possible maximum penalty, as applied for offences classified as human trafficking (twelve years). However, a key observation regarding forced and child marriage is that both acts are specified as individual offences in the respective chapters on offences against liberty and peace across all the countries and independent territories, and the penalties are higher for these offences than for other forms of offences against peace. In this respect, these honour-based offences are singled out as particularly serious.
The fact that two countries (Iceland and Finland/Åland) also classify these crimes as human trafficking can be seen in light of a fundamental problem with respect to honour-based practices: that chastity and virginity are associated with unmarried female bodies as an economic, social and political asset (Wikan, 2008; Ali, 2021). The compulsory gender segregation of honour-based practices is based on the belief that an unmarried woman must maintain her reputation as sexually pure before marriage. An unblemished reputation guarantees attractiveness in a marriage market in which, in traditional honour-practising societies, it is important to build alliances within and between families (King, 2013). In this way, forced and child marriages can be equated with the treatment of human bodies as commodities. Classifying forced and child marriages as human trafficking results in wide-spread attention and ensures extended protection for victims.
All countries and autonomous regions have supplementary civil law legislation that allows for the annulment of marriages entered into under duress or involving underage spouses. Annulment should be seen here as a collective term for the possibility of avoiding the usual requirements for a cooling-off period and other legal obstacles to ‘normal’ divorces. This alleviates the legal consequences of being forced into marriage or of a minor entering into marriage without consent.
Some minor differences exist with regard to child marriage. In Iceland, for example, marriages entered into when one party was over the age of sixteen may still be recognised if warranted by specific circumstances. However, most Nordic countries and autonomous regions have gradually clarified in their legislation on marriage that marriages entered into by persons under the age of eighteen should generally not be recognised. This can be seen as part of a social discourse that is increasingly moving towards intolerance of the cultural customs of migrants, partly as a means of protecting the domestic population (see, e.g., Manga, 2022). However, it can also be interpreted as a more general protection for persons who are considered too young to independently choose to enter into marriage and persons of legal age who live in circumstances in which their own will is subject to the influence of a surrounding group.
Female genital cutting compared
All countries (including the Faroe Islands and Åland via Danish and Finnish criminal law respectively) have specific legal provisions prohibiting female genital cutting. These provisions generally appear as an addition to the respective criminal law provisions on aggravated assault. Female genital cutting also has a specific name or criminal classification in all countries, although Denmark and the Faroe Islands deviate from this by using the more neutral term ‘female circumcision’. This can be interpreted as Danish legislation striving to use gender-neutral wording to a greater extent, since ‘circumcision’ is the term used for the male equivalent case. Previous reviews have highlighted that in Denmark legislation and preventive work against violence in close relationships is more gender neutral than in the rest of the Nordic region (GREVIO, 2017; see also Lebedeva’s study in the previous section). However, in terms of criminal law, Denmark and the Faroe Islands follow the other Nordic countries and Åland, as female circumcision is prohibited and subject to relatively high penalties. In all countries, the Faroe Islands and Åland, the range of punishment starts at imprisonment – fines are not mentioned as a penalty in any legal provision. Icelandic law includes the highest maximum penalty – imprisonment of up to sixteen years for serious crimes. Swedish law includes the highest minimum penalty – two years’ imprisonment for crimes of a normal degree – while Finnish law includes a minimum penalty of one year’s imprisonment. In Denmark and Norway, as well as in the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Åland, no minimum penalties are stipulated.
The legislation in all countries and regions is age independent with regard to victims. There are also no exceptions for cases in which a woman or girl states that the procedure was performed with her consent. The issue of consent is relevant in discourses on gender power that highlight universal male power and dominance over female partners and relatives (Björsson & Lebedeva, 2023). Consent, together with the aforementioned issue of age neutrality, is likewise relevant with regard to the question of a victim’s opportunities and capacity to give consent, given that in certain geographical contexts female genital cutting is sometimes performed on very young girls. It is not uncommon for the act to be carried on girls between six and twelve years of age, and in some cases it may take place shortly after birth (Nour, 2008). In this way, the wording of the legal support should constitute a clear obligation for, for example, school nurses who detect signs of genital cutting in connection with routine examinations to report it to the police or social services in accordance with the Social Services Act or equivalent legislation.
This study uses the collective term ‘female genital cutting’ because it is the most commonly used in the legislation of the countries studied. Only Denmark uses the more neutral term ‘female circumcision’. However, it should be noted that terminology is highly debated in Nordic and international research. The debate, grounded partly in social science but mainly anthropology, is part of an approach that emphasises a balance between protecting victims of crime on the one hand and avoiding stigmatisation of religious and cultural groups on the other. This is weighed against a more medical approach that focuses on the harm caused by the procedure from both a surgical and emotional/psychological perspective. The term ‘female genital cutting’ can be said to go furthest in terms of describing physical abuse, and therefore most clearly justifies criminal legislation. At the other end of the scale is the term ‘female circumcision’, which equates the practice with that of male circumcision, generally considered a medically insignificant procedure as well as being a culturally and socially accepted custom. A factor that further complicates the debate is research that has identified five categories of female genital cutting on an ascending scale of physical procedures, one category consisting of voluntary so-called cosmetic procedures. A comprehensive account of this debate, with an emphasis on Nordic research, can be found in the anthology Female Genital Cutting – The Global North and South (Johnsdotter, 2020).
Conversion attempts compared
Conversion attempts, i.e. attempts to influence or persuade a person to change their gender identity or sexual orientation, are punishable by law in two countries: Iceland (undirgangast ógagnreynda meðferð) and Norway (konverteringsterapi). Although the criminal classifications share the same spirit, it can be inferred from their wording that the two countries have slightly different views on what defines it as a crime. In Norway, the emphasis is on the violation of a vulnerable person, which places the emphasis on the victim’s perspective. In Iceland, the emphasis is on the criminal act of “subjecting a person to unconfirmed treatment through coercion, deception or threats”. When emphasis is placed on the act itself, the perpetrator’s guilt is highlighted more clearly. A further difference is that the Icelandic wording “unproven treatment” emphasises acts based on methods not supported by evidence. In addition to alternative medicine and religious-based treatment, the Norwegian wording also highlights psychotherapeutic or medical treatments, both of which should be understood as evidence based. However, a key feature of the Norwegian wording is the focus on systematised approaches. This highlights that the crime must constitute a repeated violation, which can be compared with the corresponding requirement that an act be “part of a repeated violation” in the Swedish clause on specified honour crimes.
When conversion attempts are placed in a Nordic context, so-called ‘good gender-equality values’ are emphasised in relation to a traditional view of ‘good sexuality’. Good sexuality as an ideal, according to Gayle Rubin’s (1998) model, can be seen to mean heterosexuality, monogamy, sex as a private act within marriage, and sexual intercourse primarily with the purpose of reproduction and childbearing. Rubin argues that ‘good sexuality’ is considered the norm and is contrasted with ‘the abnormal’, which is associated with non-heteronormative sexuality among LGBTI people. LGTBI people’s sexuality is instead associated with sex outside of marriage, promiscuity, and sex solely for pleasure and recreation. Honour practices advocate a moral code of protecting and controlling the continued spread of a clan through clear divisions between male and female, within the home but above all in public (Rosquist, 2024; Knutagård, 2022). A moral code that guards and upholds traditional gender norms (‘the good’ in Rubin’s model) can, in some families, manifest as controlling behaviour towards those who deviate from ‘good sexuality’ and are seen as needing help to ‘return’ to the family’s moral code. Such controlling behaviour can be said to constitute the systematic social control that defines conversion attempts.
The Nordic context, on the other hand, is characterised by long-term efforts to demystify issues relating to variations in sexual orientation. For example, since sex and relationships were first introduced into the Swedish curriculum in 1955, sex education has consciously moved away from traditional, moralistic values towards sexually liberal and diversity-affirming ones as part of societal efforts to promote gender equality (Liljefors Persson, 2021). Attempts by honour-practising families to counteract this ambition for gender equality can thus be brought to the attention of authorities, potentially resulting in investigations into conversion attempts. This presents courts with the dilemma of balancing the rights and obligations of parents in raising their children on the one hand and the rights of children to independently develop and embrace their sexual orientation on the other (see, e.g., Norée, 2022).
Veil bans and re-education trips – Exclusive to Denmark and the Faroe Islands
Only Danish/Faroese legislation expressly prohibits “forcing someone to wear clothing that conceals their face” or “sending a child abroad in circumstances that seriously endanger the child’s health or development”. Both offences can incur prison sentences of up to four years.
The prohibition against forcing someone to wear clothing that covers their face, pursuant to § 260 sub-paragraph 3 of the Criminal Code, must be interpreted with regard to § 134c, which expressly prohibits persons from wearing clothing that covers their face in public places. The Criminal Code § 134a-c actually regulates offences against public order in connection with demonstrations, riots or similar events, but § 134c is justified by the perceived legislative need to safeguard social cohesion and respect for citizenship. The overall objectives of the law are: