Follow-up on the Issue of "Honor Killings"

After some commentary on this matter, with some insisting that it more belongs to the sphere of simple home abuse rather than a religious/cultural issue, I did some homework.

Here's a better definition of the phenomenom:

The project considers 'crimes of honour' to encompass a variety of manifestations of violence against women including: 'honour killings', assault, unlawful confinement and forced marriage. The motivation or publicly articulated justification for committing such crimes is attributed to a social order claimed to require measures of enforcement; such as measures against women (specifically women's sexual conduct -- actual, suspected or potential), for the preservation of honour vested in male, family and/or conjugal control over women.

Although international human rights law prohibits these violations, domestic legislation and court practice vary in the level of protection and remedy they offer women, in particular where family or conjugal 'honour' is invoked. On a societal level, informal codes mandating such conduct may be endorsed to varying degrees by some sectors of society and challenged by others. The attitude of religious authorities and the implementation of religious laws may also be critical in forming and changing opinion.

On this 'project'.

In a follow-up correspondence, when I asked about those who refused to recognize the uniqueness of the matter, I was informed:

...one researcher liken[ed] responses like that to the way domestic violence was treated 20 or thirty years ago (in the UK). The police at least are beginning to get past the discomfort that they are intruding on something personal or cultural and treating "honour crimes" as crimes, plain and simple.