Member

Before turning to the noble Baroness’s latest amendment, I acknowledge the huge amount of difficulty around language. Some survivors feel that the term “honour-based abuse” echoes the excuse used by abusers and places shame on the victim rather than the perpetrators. The Freedom Charity is campaigning to replace it with “dishonour abuse”, flipping the narrative forward towards a more accurate, survivor-centred term. Although I see the power of that shift and hope it gains traction in the future, the term “honour-based abuse” is now widely understood in law and practice, so I shall use it today for clarity. Naming and defining this abuse does not legitimise it, of course, and no single phrase will capture every survivor’s experience. How could it? But this definition has been developed with survivors and specialists and is a serious attempt to reflect lived reality, not to tidy it up for legal convenience. That is why it is so important that we get the detail right now while the statute is being framed.