Heder – tillåtet eller straffbart? Gränsen mellan tillåtna och straffbara hedersrelaterade handlingar som föräldrar vidtar mot sina barn

Sammanfattning: Girls who grow up in families with strong norms of honor often live lives surrounded by control and restrictions. However, honor is difficult to define and not seldom debated. This creates problems in the legislation process and in law enforcement. Problems arise particularly when it comes to criminalizing and prosecuting the least serious honor-related acts. This essay examines to what extent honor-related acts, which parents perpetrate against their children, are punishable as violation of integrity offenses. For the examination an honor-staircase is used. It constitutes a step-by step delimitation of signs of an honor-related context and is related to the child’s home situation, school situation and leisure time. The honor-staircase consists of four steps in which different honor related acts fit. Together, the first two steps constitute central characteristics of living in an honor-related context, the first three steps imply a high probability of honor-related norms and restrictions, and the fourth step comprise additional honor-related acts that are not necessary to be considered living in an honor-related context. The essay also examines how children's and parents' rights in custody related issues affect the criminal law assessment of honor-related acts, which parents perpetrate against their children. The essay finds that punishable acts rarely, or never, occur when solely central characteristics of living in an honor-related context can be identified. When a high probability of honor-related norms and restrictions can be identified, punishable acts occur to a somewhat greater extent. Acts attributed to the fourth, unnecessary step of the honor-staircase are often punishable. Furthermore, it appears that the children's and parents' rights in custody issues can affect the criminal law assessment. However, the rules of family law are unclear. It is relatively unproblematic in family law, which is a civil law area, but since family law affects criminal law, the principle of legality in criminal law should limit the punishable area to a significant extent.