Putting an End to Women Becoming Victims of Honour-Based Abuse

A bathed mother has teamed up with a charity to try to put an end to

women

being

victims

of

honour

-

based

abuse

. Yes, Yasmin Jaed believes that shame and stigma contributed to the death of her daughter at the hands of her controlling husband. Well, now we join together. fia's mum Yasmin Javid and Natasha Ratu from the charity kmen NaNa, who are launching a campaign to redefine

honour

-

based

abuse

and have it as a legal definition to make a difference. Good morning to both of you, thank you very much for coming, um Yasmin. You know, I'm so sorry for everything you've been through, what a distressing situation you and your family have had, and there we saw part of the documentary that recently came out on Push on Channel 4, I mean, you know I was watching it and it's so powerful, so emotional, what was it like for you to be a part of that and obviously bring fia's story to a wider audience?

Well, obviously, very deeply grieving and in a lot of pain. It was very, very difficult, but at the same time. At the time it was very important for people to know what you went through and expose the killer and the multiple perpetrators that were involved and hopefully the documentary would just show what she went through and prevent it from happening to anyone else. Yes, then there was a person. convicted here Cashif, that's right, Fia's husband, who was convicted of killing her in that incident on Arthur Seat in Edinburgh, but you say you believe there is an honor-based element to what happened, yes, absolutely, I mean , there were others who were complicit in what was happening that was part of the abuse that allowed it to happen.

I don't know if you saw the bit where the father gives the interview, um in court, uh, what you saw was just an inch of what fos was exposed and no. Just FIA, my husband and I, at what point were you already married? I mean, you were only married for eight eight months, at what point did you realize that this was not going to be the happy marriage that you wanted your daughter to have for any mother? her daughter uh In a couple of months I realized that Fosy was not her normal self, she was always a very cheerful girl, very happy, always with a smile on her face and, although she was like that, I realized that something I wasn't okay and little by little she started telling me about some of the abuse, even though I know she was holding back, she always started with Look now, I don't want you to worry and you should start telling me some things now that you know I'm from the same community.

As you know and I hear this all the time from many families, I think each of our families has probably had incidents like this to varying degrees. What is it about those situations where someone just can't seem to get out? front door and just go, that's it, I'm done with this. I'm going back to my mom. I'll go there. There is something that is not there. There is something that prevents

women

from just being able to do. which in the fia case, it was a case where the fia had the full support of her parents to return and she wanted to return, so when Folia reported the abuse to the police the first time, the police acknowledged the abuse and the FIA ​​also reported the fact that he had stolen £12,000 from his bank account and they actually said look, we think you're going to turn around and say you gave him this money, so the FIA ​​had to come back to deal to persuade him and his parents to return the money because the parents had even told the FIA ​​not to tell your parents about this and there is a part that is not in the documentary where there is a telephone conversation between them and her stays with you at that moment and he tells you You have to come home, stop acting like a man, yes that's right, I'm telling you, like your husband, you have to come home, that's right Natasha, your CEO from the Carmen Nana charity that deals with many of these cases.

You already know the situation we have now. to completely clarify that only one person was involved in this particular case, but you are saying that there needs to be a change in the legal system to recognize the influence that families can have in these types of cases. Yes, that is why we are calling for the government to introduce a legal definition for honor-based abuse because even though karmana has been around for 30 years and deals with thousands of cases of people affected by VOR-based abuse , we still do not have a universal legal definition and this is really problematic because professionals who have duties to protect and safeguard do not always recognize honor-based abuse when it occurs, but also a real common feature in honor-based abuse is the element of multiple perpetrators, this family complicity, and without having a legal definition, we don't do it.

Recognize those perpetrators as well, so it's really critical that we have a legal definition. It's a very simple thing that the government can do, but it will have a huge and far-reaching impact, so let's look at the case as a whole and what happened, how difficult it is. However, or would it be trying something like that? Well, I think the legal definition is a starting point because people have a context in which this type of abuse occurs, so they are more likely to recognize it, because you know, we know it from the documentary than when the perpetrator who was convicted pushed Fosier off the cliff, he didn't do it in 999, he called his father and we see classic elements of honor abuse, so a legal definition would allow a professional to recognize it in its context and car.

Nana received a call from Yasmin before Fia's death and there is a lot of information that is not in the public domain but it is very obvious that there was a very clear conversation about you. These are really difficult conversations that we had for obvious reasons, but there's the other conversation. We had about culture now, you know, I could probably ask you this, we're both from the same Asian culture, are there cultural issues within our communities that need to be addressed that maybe don't exist anywhere else or are you seeing them? Across society, I mean, we're seeing that in the UK there are two women dying every week at the hands of domestic abuse and we know that in the vast majority of those cases they are killed by a partner or ex-partner. and the vast majority of people have had contact with a public body like the police, so we know this is a widespread problem across cultures and communities, but what we're not seeing is action to address it after every domestic homicide that is produced.

Where there is a review, recommendations are made but unfortunately we don't see those recommendations being put into practice and by not

putting

them into practice we are letting women and girls down, it's an important conversation and yes, so bad, you know. . Throughout all of this, obviously, Fosier is at the center of this and I was surprised watching the documentary, you know, when you mentioned how cheerful she was, how full of life she was, tell us about her because you know, I know that you. feel her loss very deeply she was so special to you yes she was I'm sorry she was an incredibly amazing young woman she was our life our world our heartbeat she was a humanitarian who wore her heart on her sleeve and would do anything for anyone she met she would people who only knew her on The Once would have approached her and told her that she had an impact on them.

She was just an amazing young woman. Can I just say that I would be very proud that you were here today to talk about this to talk about your story and to want to spread this message that what you were doing to make a difference and to give your opinion and to be there to share the message asking for recognition of honor-based abuse thank you, thank you very much for coming to talk to us today, thank you also, Natasha, thank you Yasmin and thank you very much, um, Natasha, we should say that you have actually been affected by any of the problems that we have been discussing, you can find advice and support. on the itv.com help lines