Honour crimes, in times of peace as in times of war, fall into the broad category of sexual violence against women. Honour crimes also belong to the category of sexual mutilation that some women suffer in Central America, Africa and elsewhere. We're also talking about forced marriages at a young age or even forced pregnancies and trafficking in women. I know that a recent study has shown that Afghan families often marry their daughters increasingly young to prevent them from being raped by the Taliban or other groups. This is a set of crimes based on relationships of inequality between men and women.
That's fundamentally where that comes from. These are prejudices; this is the way the role of women, their identity and the social role they are assigned in societies are perceived. I could say, somewhat crudely, that the way to lower the incidence of these crimes, whether it be honour crimes or other sexual crimes against women, would be to develop policies aimed at communities that involve men and women for the purpose of changing cultural standards. In fact, the idea would especially be to develop policies that would enable women to become independent. The well-known term in English is empowerment. That would enable them to play an active role in society and in reconstruction.