A DRIVE to raise awareness and tackle so-called honour violence and forced marriages has been launched at a major conference.

The crime, which can include beatings, kidnap and even murder in the name of maintaining a family's honour, is a "significant problem" in Lancashire, according to police.

The conference, organised by the police, Crown Prosecution Service and community representatives took place yesterday and 100 people discussed the issue and ways to tackle honour violence.

Organisers said more needed to be done immediately to make sure the issue of violence that can occur within families is taken as seriously as possible.

The conference, at Lancashire Constabulary's headquarters in Hutton, near Preston, set key aims:

  • Raising awareness of the issue
  • Examining ways of addressing the problem
  • Establishing the scale of the problem in Lancashire
  • Encouraging reporting
  • Protecting and supporting victims and witnesses.

Representatives from the Muslim community as well as support groups and the police and prosecution services were at the conference.

It is hoped to develop concrete proposals on how to help detection and reporting of incidents.

Nationally there are around 12 honour killings each year and 500 honour crime cases investigated. No specific figures exist in Lancashire but because of the ethnic population it is known to be a problem in this area. Establishing the number of incidents in Lancashire and the full scale of the problem is now a priority for police.

Organisers said the issue of honour killings was mostly prevalent in the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities. But police said it was not linked to religion, but rather cultural background.

The main problem areas in Lancashire are in Blackburn, Burnley and Preston, police said.

Detective Superintendent Graham Herrmann said: "We see so-called honour based violence as an extension of domestic abuse which seems to affect certain communities more than others.

"We would like to build on our strong track record on domestic abuse in relation to honour crime and in order to do so we need to better understand the problems faced by our communities."