Through the Swedish integration policy, public sector officials have gained knowledge of honour-related violence. Hopefully, this will result in a reduced number of forced marriages and honour killings. There is thus reason to praise both Mona Sahlin and Nyamko Sabuni. But how is it that virginity checks, hymen reconstruction, child and forced marriages, honour killings and ‘balcony suicide’ still continue to thrive in today's Sweden? Why is it in today's Sweden that 70 000 young people who, because of regulatory frameworks in honour cultures, are not free to choose their life- or love partners, and are limited in their choice of dress, friends and education?

I was born in a country where honour-related violence is still both legal and systematic, and in which honour killers can easily be freed with bribes, or get a reduction on their sentences. In my old homeland one of Pela’s killers, her father, walks free, while Pela lies in an un...