Death before dishonour

The death threats drop through Jasvinder Sanghera's letter box at least twice a week. More often than not, when the notes are particularly vicious, they are accompanied by a smearing of filth across her windows. When she drives, Sanghera constantly monitors the cars behind, frightened that she is being followed by a murderer.

In such a terrifying situation, one would expect her to turn to her extended family for comfort. But for Sanghera this is not an option: the harsh reality is that her family despise her just as much as those who threaten her life.

Her "crime" was to defy the strict dictates of her Asian family and refuse a forced marriage.

At 16, she ran away from home rather than marry a man she had seen only in a photograph. Since then, having witnessed the suicide of her sister, who poured paraffin over her body and set herself alight to escape a forced marriage, she has set up Karma Nivana, a support group charity that helps women flee forced marriages and those who risk becoming victims of family "honour" killing.

A Sunday Telegraph investigation has established that honour killings are increasing rapidly in Britain.

Home Office statistics suggest that there are 12 such murders each year. However, according to research, the true figure is much higher. At a conference in Southampton last week, police chiefs revealed that they are re-examining 2,000 deaths and murders between 1996 and 2006 to establish whether they involve honour killings. So far, 19 have now been found to be honour killings. A further 20 involved some element of "honour violence".

The string of deaths is likely to include some that were previously deemed suicides but have been found to be forced suicides and murder disguised as suicide.

A special unit has been created by the Foreign Office to travel around the world seeking British-born Asian women who have been forced into marriage. It operates mainly in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Kenya and Yemen. Officials from the local British embassy or consulate co-operate with police to identify these women and, if they are clearly being held against their will, bring them home to Britain.

"The official figure of 12 [honour killings] is but the tip of a very big iceberg," says Sanghera, who has written an autobiography, Shame, based on her own family experiences of "honour" violence.

Her charity sees almost 1,000 women each year who have been threatened with death, beaten, starved, kidnapped and brutalised by their families for refusing or escaping forced marriages.

"Often women are forced into committing suicide," she says. "Or they are murdered and the killing is made to look like suicide, which is the verdict recorded.

"It's very significant that the numbers of young Asian women between the ages of 16 and 24 who take their own lives is three times higher than the national average."

One young woman, too scared to be identified, tells a shocking tale of brutality at the hands of her family. When she refused a forced marriage her three elder brothers lured her to a relative's home and beat her for an hour. "I was bleeding and my nose was broken," she says, "but even so my brother handed me lighter fuel and a box of matches and said, 'You know what you have to do. Do it or we will do it for you'." She was rescued by friends but knows that if her family ever find her she will be killed.

Laura Richards, the senior behavioural analyst at the Met's homicide prevention unit, agrees that harsh lessons have still to be learned.

"We need to plug gaps," she said. "The detectives and specialist officers have training but we need to revise our front-line training to desk officers and 999 call-handlers."

Forced marriages

A recent survey among young Asian men has revealed that one in 10 believes honour killings can be justified which, says Sanghera, makes it vital to outlaw forced marriages. Following a government about-turn two months ago, all three major parties now support Lord Lester's Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Bill.

Such legislation would mean that young people at risk would be able to apply for court orders preventing them being forced into marriage, while those who have already become victims could sue for damages.

Her own story and that of her sister Robina makes horrific reading. Two of seven sisters from Derby, Sanghera was shown a picture of her prospective husband when she was only 14.

"I was terrified of being married so young and to a stranger," she says. "My older sisters were forced into marriages."

Her parents locked her in her room for two days but she escaped. When she phoned home to say she was all right her mother screamed abuse at her, telling her: "In our eyes you are dead."

Sanghera withstood all the family pressure and threats but she was unable to save Robina. "She suffered 90 per cent burns," she says. "The pain must have been unimaginable. Yet even in her agony, and with only minutes to live, she told paramedics to cover her face as they carried her to the ambulance." Even then, she couldn't bear to bring shame to her family."

Today, like every day, Sanghera will open her mail with care. "I take precautions but I am not going to stop helping women caught up in this terrible circle of violence and death," she says. "I will fight until I die to free women from forced marriages."