A Moroccan migrant living in Italy is facing charges after allegedly brutally beating his own daughter because he felt that she was acting and dressing “too Western”.
The 58-year-old is said to have repeatedly beaten his 16-year-old daughter at their home in the municipality of Soresina in the northern Italian region of Lombardy, Il Giornale reports.
According to initial investigations by the Carabinieri, the 58-year-old had grown angry that his daughter wanted to dress and act like the Italian girls around her and was opposed to the fact that she had made efforts to fit in with their local community rather than adhere to Islamic traditions.
The Carabinieri had been called over several domestic abuse allegations at the family home in the past and in the most recent call, they found the 16-year-old girl heavily bruised, particularly on her face. The victim told the officers that her father had hit her and slammed her into a wall. The father was then reported for violence and is currently under investigation.
The case echoes many other so-called “honour culture” cases in which perpetrators, often from migrants backgrounds, resort to violence to force relatives to act in a certain manner.
Honour culture issues are becoming particularly pervasive in Sweden where an estimated 240,000 young people from migrant backgrounds live with it. Since the height of the migrant crisis in 2015, Sweden has also seen a rise in the number of people reaching out for help in dealing with honour-culture issues.
In some cases, honour violence can go beyond severe beatings to the point of murder, as was the case in Vienna last year when an 18-year-old Afghan migrant was arrested for stabbing and murdering his 14-year-old sister.
Earlier this year, an Italian citizen of Pakistani background was also the victim of an honour killing. Sana Cheema. 25. was murdered, allegedly by her father and uncle, while in Pakistan after she had refused an arranged marriage.