New Statutory Guidance and Legal Definition on ‘Honour’-based abuse delivered by the Home Office
In August 2025, the Home Office announced the Government will introduce new statutory guidance alongside a legal definition of ‘honour’-based abuse (HBA) as a part of the Government’s pledge to halve violence against women and girls with the Plan for Change.
These measures mark a significant shift in how HBA is defined, understood, and addressed across public services and policing. These measures follow long-standing concerns from practitioners, campaigners and victims’ representatives that HBA is inconsistently recognised and inadequately addressed within existing legal and safeguarding frameworks. The development represents an important moment in the evolution of policy on gendered and family-related violence.
The case for a statutory definition has rested largely on the lack of consistency across institutions. At present, HBA is described in various ways by different agencies, with some treating it as a sub-category of domestic abuse. The absence of a unified definition has led to disparities in recording and in professional responses. A statutory definition should provide clarity, harmonising understanding across the criminal justice system, social services, education and healthcare. In principle, this can improve recognition, allow for more accurate data collection, and facilitate cross-agency coordination in assisting those at-risk of or are experiencing HBA.
The accompanying guidance will play an important role. The guidance will seek to provide practical instruction on day-to-day professional practice. Given that HBA often involves multiple perpetrators and community-based forms of coercion, generic domestic abuse frameworks can prove inadequate. Guidance tailored to the specific dynamics of HBA will assist professionals in identifying risks and managing cases appropriately.
Risk assessment remains a key area of concern. Current tools, such as the DASH (Domestic Abuse, Stalking and Harassment) checklist, have been criticised for failing to capture the distinctive risks posed in the HBA context. Victims may face threats of ostracism, transnational elements such as forced removal abroad, or collective forms of violence, all of which, supported by a widening area of scholarship, are not reflected in existing instruments. The government has indicated that it will review these tools.
The announcement of reforms has been welcomed by a number of stakeholders, including the Victims’ Commissioner, Baroness Newlove, and charities such as Karma Nirvana.
