Published : 2025-07-03

Honorary Crimes Committed by Women (abortio, infanticido, derelictio modo nati et intellectualis falsitas honoris causa)

Abstract

Committing a criminal act motivated by reasons of honor was widely accepted in criminal law orders as a mitigating circumstance for criminal liability. Nowadays, this practice is still in effect in many countries. It is uniformly accepted in the judicature that honor crimes, by their conceptual scope, include behavior that constitutes a form of violence against women. The Istanbul Convention has undoubtedly contributed to the above, particularly its Article 42, indicating that acts of violence against women shall not be justified on cultural, customary, religious, traditional or so-called “honor” grounds. However, the jurists rarely mention a group of honor crimes that, as a rule, can only be committed by women, such as abortion, infanticide, abandonment of a newborn, or intellectual falsification honoris causa. The article presents the existing European and non-European regulations on the honor crimes indicated above. Selected historical regulations binding in the second half of the 20th century are also presented. The purpose of the article is to show that the types of honor crimes indicated above are motivated by violence against women, so the Istanbul Convention is also applicable to them.

Keywords:

crime, honour, abortion, infanticide



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Najman, M. (2025). Honorary Crimes Committed by Women (abortio, infanticido, derelictio modo nati et intellectualis falsitas honoris causa). Kościół I Prawo, 14(1), 171–192. https://doi.org/10.18290/kip2025.10

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Kościół i Prawo · ISSN 0208-7928 · e-ISSN 2544-5804 · DOI: 10.18290/kip

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