FJA Shortlist 2021

Category: Contribution to Civil Rights

Authors: Nils Adler, Pascal Vossen

Murder in the Name of Honour

The original publication is available via the following link: https://elpais.com/planeta-futuro/2020-11-28/asesinar-mujeres-en-nombre-de-la-mala-reputacion.html 

El País - November 29, 2020

English translation

A 19-year-old woman sits in a south-London police interview room, her shoulders hunched as she clasps a paper cup. She appears calm, speaking softly in lightly accented English. A camera mounted in the corner records everything. “People are following me,” she tells a police officer “at any time, if anything happens to me, it’s them”.

This was one of five times Banaz Mahmod, who had moved to London from Iraqi Kurdistan when she was 10-years-old, approached the police for help. She had recently divorced her abusive first husband from an arranged marriage and was in love with another man, something that her family perceived to have shamed them in the eyes of the local community.

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