Europe prides itself on gender equality, individual freedom, and the rule of law. Yet, in quiet suburbs, small towns, and even major cities, a medieval practice continues to claim lives: the deliberate murder of daughters and sisters for the sake of family “honor.” These are not impulsive acts of rage. They are planned, often collective, and executed with chilling precision. While the absolute numbers remain low compared to other forms of femicide, each case is a stark reminder that dangerous ideas about control, shame, and female autonomy still travel with people across borders.
Understanding the Pattern
The typical victim is a young woman—average age around 23—who has rejected an arranged marriage, begun a relationship without parental approval, refused to wear religious clothing, or simply asserted her right to education and independence. The perpetrators are almost always close male relatives: fathers, brothers, uncles, sometimes even mothers or cousins. The stated motive is always the same: the woman’s behavior has “dishonored” the family, and only her death can restore it.
European courts reject any cultural defense. Judges repeatedly emphasize that no tradition, religion, or notion of honor can justify murder. Sentences are accordingly severe, often approaching the maximum for premeditated killing.
How Many Cases Are There Really?
Reliable continent-wide statistics do not exist, largely because most countries do not record “honor” as a separate category—researchers, therefore, piece together numbers from court records, police reports, and media monitoring.
- United Kingdom: approximately 10–15 confirmed or strongly suspected cases per year in the 2010s and early 2020s
- Germany: around 50 documented cases between 2000 and 2010, with several more each year since
- Sweden: honor-related motives identified in roughly one-third of female murders in some years
- Netherlands, France, Italy, Belgium: 3–10 cases annually each
Taken together, credible estimates place the total number of honor-related murders across Europe at 30–100 per decade, with the true figure likely higher due to misclassification and underreporting.
The Heartbreaking Story of Ryan Al Najjar
Few recent cases have shaken the Netherlands as deeply as the murder of 18-year-old Ryan Al Najjar in May 2024.
Ryan was a lively Syrian refugee living in the northern town of Joure. She loved makeup, posted videos on TikTok, had a Dutch boyfriend, and refused to wear a headscarf in public. To her strictly conservative family, these were unforgivable transgressions.
On the night of 22 May 2024, her brothers, Mohamed (23) and Muhanad (25), collected her from the family home under a pretext. They drove her more than two hours to the remote Oostvaardersplassen nature reserve. There, with their father Khaled directing events by phone from the shadows, they bound Ryan hand and foot with 18 metres of duct tape, gagged her, and threw her alive into a swamp. She drowned slowly, fighting until the end—her father’s DNA was later found under her fingernails.
Within days, Khaled fled to northern Syria, where he has since remarried. In November 2025, Dutch prosecutors demanded 25 years for the absent father and 20 years each for the brothers, describing the crime as “ice-cold” and declaring that “honor is never an excuse for murder.” The trial continues to dominate Dutch headlines and has reignited national debate about integration, women’s shelters, and the limits of multiculturalism when fundamental rights are at stake.
Why Does This Keep Happening?
Large-scale migration from regions where honor-based violence is more common—parts of the Middle East, South Asia, and the Balkans—explains the presence of the phenomenon, but not its persistence. Many first-generation immigrants abandon such practices the moment they feel secure in their new society. Others, however, experience the freedoms of Europe as a threat to their authority and identity, and cling even more fiercely to old norms.
The second generation often bears the brunt. Daughters raised with European expectations of personal choice collide head-on with parents who measure worth by obedience and sexual purity. The result can be catastrophic.
The Long Road to Prevention
Progress is real but uneven:
- The UK has Forced Marriage Protection Orders and specific honor-based abuse police units.
- Sweden trains teachers, nurses, and social workers to recognise warning signs.
- Germany funds anonymous shelters and emergency relocation programmes.
- The Netherlands now maintains a national register of high-risk cases.
Yet gaps remain. Police sometimes dismiss early complaints as “family matters.” Shelters are too few. Protected identities can still be discovered through community networks. And in Ryan Al Najjar’s case, police protection that had been granted earlier was withdrawn weeks before her death.
What More Must Be Done
- Mandatory Europe-wide training for frontline professionals—police, healthcare workers, teachers—on recognising honor-related oppression.
- Secure, cross-border shelter networks that can move a girl to another country if necessary.
- Consistent data collection and annual public reporting so policymakers can track trends.
- Funding for grassroots organisations led by women from the affected communities themselves—they are often the only voices families will listen to.
- Clear political leadership that states, without apology, that certain practices have no place in Europe, while still welcoming those who respect the social contract.
A Continent That Must Not Look Away
Every honor killing is a betrayal of the European promise: that anyone who reaches these shores can live without fear of violence for simply being themselves. Ryan Al Najjar wanted to study, to laugh with friends, to fall in love on her own terms. She paid for that ordinary dream with her life.https://hradecky.denik.cz/
As long as even one young woman in Europe has to weigh her freedom against the risk of death at the hands of her own family, the fight against honor-based violence remains unfinished. The continent that prides itself on human rights cannot afford silence or complacency.https://theinfohatch.com/do-flu-shots-work-against-h3n2-this-season/
Rest in peace, Ryan. And may your name help ensure no one else suffers the same fate.
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