ITV's Honour: sister of Banaz Mahmod is "pleased the conversation is being had"
'It's crucial to raise awareness about honour killings, and this drama will hopefully do that,' says Payzee Mahmod.
Payzee Mahmod, the sister of honour killing victim Banaz Mahmod, has told RadioTimes.com that she is "pleased" that her sister's story is being told in the upcoming ITV factual drama Honour.
In a BBC interview last year, Mahmod previously criticised the drama for focusing on Caroline Goode, the former Scotland Yard detective portrayed by Keeley Hawes in the series, rather than on Banaz's story.
However, Mahmod has since watched the ITV drama, and exclusively told RadioTimes.com that she is "not focusing so much on the angle [from which] the story is told", but on the conversations about honour based abuse that the show will hopefully raise.
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"I believe it’s absolutely crucial to raise awareness on honour based abuse and openly talk about it, [and] this drama will hopefully do that," she said, before continuing, "I think being the sister of Banaz and feeling, even after 14 years, immense pain for the way my sister's life ended and how she was let down by the police and so many others, I feel no matter who tells her story or how it’s told, it will always be painful to hear, because in a dream world Banaz would be telling her own story.
"Because of what I have dedicated my life to, campaigning and raising awareness on these issues, I am not focusing so much on the angle [from which] the story is told; what I can comfortably say is that I am pleased the conversation is being had, and that no matter who speaks about it, for me and those who loved Banaz, this conversation will always hurt."
Gwyneth Hughes, who wrote the screenplays for the ITV drama Honour, previously told RadioTimes.com and other press that Payzee Mahmod is now "fully supportive" of the drama.
Hughes explained that she hadn't initially consulted Mahmod for the ITV series because she had "disappeared" after the court case.
"We hadn't spoken to her [by the time of her BBC interview] because we hadn't even known she was there," Hughes said, before adding, "[Payzee] now says, 'Oh my god, will they stop using that quote from last summer, why don't they ask me for a new one?'
"Because she's fully supportive now, fully supportive, and she thinks the absolutely crucial thing is not to have these stupid petty arguments about this kind of thing, but to bring light into the arena of [honour based] violence, and what she says is that she thinks it's absolutely crucial to awareness about honour-based abused and talk openly about it, and this drama will do that."
ITV's Honour follows the real-life murder of 20-year-old Banaz Mahmod, who was killed in 2006 on the orders of her father and uncle after she left an abusive relationship to be with another man.
Honour airs on ITV this September. Contact IKWRO Women's Rights Organisation for more information about Honour Based Abuse.
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