Banaz’s Law Now
By Aneeta Prem, Founder of Freedom Charity
It often begins with small controls that do not look like danger to outsiders.
A girl says someone is watching her. Her family checks her phone. A sudden “holiday” appears on the calendar. Then the word “shame” starts to do the work of a threat. So she tells one adult because she cannot carry it alone, and because time feels tight.
Banaz Mahmod told the police. She still died in 2006. Investigators later found her body in a suitcase buried in a garden in Birmingham.
Her case matters because it shows what hesitation can cost. In fact, the police watchdog later said the police had “let her down”.
Why do we call it dishonour-based abuse
Freedom Charity uses the term dishonour-based abuse for a simple reason. There is no honour in coercion, control, or violence. However, the word “honour” can echo the perpetrator’s story and dull professional judgement at the wrong moment. “Dishonour”, by contrast, keeps the focus on harm, risk, and criminal choices.
This is not an attack on culture. Instead, it is a refusal to let abusers hide behind culture. At the same time, it stops “shame” from sounding like a reason to delay.
What Banaz’s Law means
Banaz’s Law is a campaign-led call for clearer protection and clearer consequences in cases labelled “honour-based”. Southall Black Sisters sets out the case for explicit recognition in sentencing and for guidance in law shaped by lived experience and specialist expertise.
One idea sits at the centre of it all. Violence does not become less serious because an abuser calls it tradition.
The danger rarely arrives as a headline
Many people expect bruises first. In practice, control comes first more often.
Look for a life shrinking. For example, friends disappear, after-school plans stop, and a young person starts to look over their shoulder. Meanwhile, family members begin to speak about “shame” as if the child owes them obedience.
Fear does not always shout. Instead, fear often learns to whisper.
The Freedom One Chance Rule
Professionals often get one safe moment to act. That is why Freedom Charity uses the Freedom One Chance Rule.
If a girl or young woman says she fears her family, treat it as urgent. Even one sign can be enough:
-
Someone follows her or watches her.
-
Family members check her phone or messages.
-
The family plans travel and she does not want to go.
-
The family speaks about marriage or engagement.
-
The family uses “shame” to control her.
-
She names a person she fears.
Because this moment may be your only chance, respond in a way that protects her.
First, avoid common mistakes. For example, do not dismiss it as drama, and do not “check” with family. Likewise, do not arrange mediation or a family meeting. Finally, do not ask her to prove it or send her back to gather more information.
Instead, act. Safeguard. Escalate.
What the data shows, and what it misses
The Home Office recorded 2,949 honour-based abuse flagged offences in England and Wales in the year ending March 2025. Police also logged 2,047 related incidents that did not become a recorded notifiable crime. Crucially, the Home Office explains that recording and identification affect the figures, so readers should interpret them with care.
Even so, those numbers cannot capture the full scale. Many victims do not report because abusers monitor them and families apply pressure. As a result, fear can block the call before it even happens.
Recorded data helps. However, it never tells the whole story.
Stop calling delay “sensitivity”
Some professionals worry about saying the wrong thing. As a result, that worry can turn into delay.
Safeguarding does not require perfect language. It requires action. So treat fear as evidence of risk and build from there.
The forensic reality professionals must understand
People often picture one perpetrator. Dishonour-based abuse does not always follow that pattern.
Group control increases danger. In other words, more than one person may apply pressure, threaten, or enforce a decision. Therefore the system must not rely on the victim to carry the whole case.
Digital evidence often matters early. For example, messages disappear, accounts get wiped, and phones get taken. That is why timelines, network thinking, and urgency matter.
One simple rule sits underneath all of it: never send a child back into a family meeting to explain their fear.
Practical actions by role
Schools and colleges
-
Move the young person to a safe space and involve the Designated Safeguarding Lead immediately.
-
Record what the child said, in their words.
-
Avoid family contact and mediation.
-
Treat sudden travel plans, absence changes, and collection changes as high risk.
-
Escalate through safeguarding pathways without delay.
Police
-
Treat the first report as high risk.
-
Assume more than one person may play a role.
-
Use an independent interpreter when needed.
-
Secure digital evidence early: messages, call logs, locations, threats, social media.
-
Move quickly on protective options when the report includes “shame”, surveillance, travel, or marriage pressure.
CPS
-
Build the case so it does not collapse if fear silences the victim.
-
Put planning, intimidation, and people acting together at the centre of the narrative.
-
Challenge any attempt to dress violence up as tradition.
If you are young and worried
If you are in immediate danger, call 999.
If you are a child or young person, you can contact Childline on 0800 1111.
If you are an adult worried about a child, you can contact the NSPCC Helpline on 0808 800 5000.
If you are in school, ask to speak to the Designated Safeguarding Lead.
The line Banaz’s Law draws
Banaz’s Law asks the UK to set a clear standard.
No one should treat “honour” as an excuse. Likewise, no one should treat “culture” as a reason to slow down. Instead, protection must come first and action must come early.
There is no honour here. Only dishonour, and a duty to act.
Home Office (official statistics, year ending March 2025):
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/so-called-honour-based-abuse-offences-year-ending-march-2025/statistics-on-so-called-honour-based-abuse-offences-england-and-wales-year-ending-march-2025
Childline (contacting Childline, 0800 1111):
https://www.childline.org.uk/get-support/contacting-childline/
NSPCC Helpline (0808 800 5000):
https://www.nspcc.org.uk/about-us/our-services/nspcc-helpline/
INTERNAL LINKS
CPS, police and dishonour abuse (your Freedom Charity article):
CPS, forced marriage and FGM (your Freedom Charity article):