What is the connection between forced marriage and slavery? At its core, slavery involves treating people as if they are property
When I was thirteen, even though I didn’t realise it at the time, I was incredibly lucky to be ‘suffering’ through high school and working at the local burger joint on weekends.
Not all girls are this fortunate.
Consider Shahida’s situation.
When Shahida was 13, her father arranged for her to marry a 45-year-old man who had promised her family money in exchange.
She was very unhappy with her husband but endured life with him for a year before running back to her home. Her father was very angry. He beat her and yelled at her to go back to her marriage, but Shahida thought that even this was not as bad as life with her husband. When she refused to return, her father dug a deep hole in the ground. He forced her into it and began covering her.
Shahida still wonders if he really would have buried her alive if the neighbours hadn’t heard her screaming and stopped him.
What is the connection between forced marriage and slavery? At its core, slavery involves treating people as if they are property. What can you do if you own a car or a mobile phone? You can drive it, you can sell it, give it away, trade it in, take it to the rubbish dump if you choose.
Shahida’s experience illustrates the connection between slavery and forced marriage only too well. Being traded for money like a piece of property. Forced to have sex with no regard to your health, physical or psychological, or other wants or needed. Being brutally threatened to be buried alive when you try to leave.
http://news.trust.org/item/20170918115342-4ztc2
Tags: forced marriage
