Honour-based violence and intimate partner homicide in Portugal

Abstract

Honour-based violence (HBV) refers to acts, usually targeting women, intended to safeguard or restore family or community "honour." Although the Council of Europe established a comprehensive framework through the Istanbul Convention (2011) and subsequent GREVIO recommendations, member states diverge widely in how they acknowledge and address HBV. In Portugal, a multicultural Convention signatory, HBV is largely absent from political debate and scientific agendas. Intimate-partner homicide (IPH) already receives some scientific attention, yet it remains unclear whether, and to what extent, "honour" appears (explicitly or implicitly) in judicial reasoning on IPH. This qualitative study, therefore, examines how Portuguese courts frame IPH, assessing whether honour-related motives are acknowledged, overlooked, or subsumed under conventional domestic violence narratives. We conducted an in-depth content analysis of 68 appellate decisions on IPH (1993-2025), drawn from the national jurisprudence database, mapping: direct references to honour, justifications rooted in "dishonour", and the legal classifications applied. Results reveal (i) rare explicit mention of honour as a motive; (ii) a judicial tendency to frame such cases as conventional domestic violence; and (iii) the absence of HBV-specific aggravating circumstances. By contrasting these results with practices in other Council of Europe states, the article identifies cultural factors and institutional gaps that limit HBV recognition in Portugal by comparing these findings with practices in different countries. We propose some changes (e.g., specialised training for magistrates, evidence-collection protocols) to render honour motives visible in legal proceedings.