Violence Research Centre: ''Honour' and Violence: A Cross-Cultural Perspective'

On 27 February 2017, the Violence Research Centre at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, will host Dr Nafisa Shah and Professor Aisha K. Gill for a discussion on ‘honour’ based violence in Pakistan, and the UK.  This event will be held from 5:30-7pm, with a drinks reception afterwards.

Honour-based violence against women is a global tragedy. Over 11,000 cases of honour crimes were recorded by UK police forces from 2010-14, and 1100 women were killed by their families in the name of honour in Pakistan in 2015.

Dr Nafisa Shah will present her recently published study on gender violence, law, and power in Pakistan. Her work draws connections between state law and customary practice, which can help policy makers and activists in understanding the power dynamics that allow honour killings to persist in Pakistan.

Professor Aisha K. Gill will discuss the theory, policy, and practice of ‘honour’ based violence among South Asian communities in the UK based on her research, offering a cross-cultural comparative perspective to the complex global challenge of addressing violence against women.

Dr Shah is a member of Parliament in Pakistan, where she is a strong advocate for rights based policy. She holds a PhD in social and cultural anthropology from the University of Oxford. In 2001, she was elected as mayor of Khairpur in Sindh, where she served as one of only two women mayors across Pakistan. She previously worked as a journalist for Newsline magazine in Pakistan. She tweets @ShahNafisa.

Professor Aisha K. Gill, Ph.D. is Professor of Criminology at University of Roehampton, UK. Her research focusses on health and criminal justice responses to violence against black, minority ethnic and refugee women in the UK, Iraqi Kurdistan and India. She has been involved in addressing violence against women at the grassroots level for seventeen years and has published widely in refereed journals. She tweets @DrAishaKGill.

Further information is available on the Criminology website and Facebook page.