The first sentence has been handed down under the new legislation to crack down on forced marriages.
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The first sentence has been handed down under the new legislation to crack down on forced marriages.
A businessman has been sentenced to 16 years in prison for forced marriage and sexual offences. In what is believed to be the first case in the UK since new legislation was introduced in 2014 the 43-year-old man from Cardiff pleaded guilty to four counts of rape, one count of bigamy and one count of voyeurism.
Merthyr Crown Court heard the already married man systematically raped his victim for months before threatening to go public with hidden camera footage of her showering unless she became his wife. The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, developed an “irrational obsession” with his victim and lured her to his home under the promise of a get-together with friends.
But when she arrived at his home in Cardiff, the woman found the property empty before the curtains were drawn and the front door locked. A judge then told of how the terrified woman – a devout Muslim – was bound and gagged with scarves before music was played loudly to drown out her cries for help.
Last year the Forced Marriages Unit (FMU), run jointly by the Home Office and the Foreign Office, gave advice and support in 1,267 cases of possible forced marriages.
So why are there so few prosecutions? Many say the problem lies in deep-rooted cultural traditions and that young people are reluctant to come forward to the authorities.
Nazir Afzal, former head of the North West Crown Prosecution Service, says the new legislation with the threat of seven years in prison is needed to make progress. “One of the major things stopping victims coming forward is the codes of silence that exist in the family.
“It’s like the mafia. You cover up, as you are so scared of the consequences,” he says.”Victims are not receiving the justice they deserve and this is why this new legislation matters. It’s to help victims – it’s all victim-led.”
Campaign groups say the actual numbers of forced marriages are much higher, with between 8,000 and 10,000 each year in the UK, though this remains an estimate and actual numbers are hard to prove.
Read More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33073875
Whenever I tell my friends that I’ve thought about getting married to a guy that my parents will pick for me, I always get the same response.
“Wait a minute, an arranged marriage!?”
“But why? Aren’t you worried!?”
“Last I checked it’s not the 1900s.”
Et cetera, et cetera.
They’re right, it’s definitely not the 1900s anymore. Times are changing and society is moving forward.
Like any other woman, when I was younger I was adamant about being in a love marriage — falling in love and getting married with or without my parents’ approval was the dream, just like in the movies. Of course my parents continuously squashed that idea right out of my head. I still remember that one day a few years ago when we went out for a lovely family dinner like we do every few weeks. Of course I, being the petulant child that I sometimes am, brought up the topic of matrimony and asked my parents outright why they wanted me to have an arranged marriage. That’s right, I came straight out and asked them. Shocker, right? But I can tell you now that this was the most informative conversation I have ever had with my parents in all my 20-something years of life.
“We just want a happy life for you,” my dad explained to me. I told him that I knew this. Every father dreams of a content life for his children. “But it’s my life. I’m the one getting married, so I should decide who I marry,” I argued back. As a born and bred Canadian, the whole concept of an arranged marriage was unsettling to me.
Read More: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/tamilculture/arrange-marriage-decision_b_7433342.html
A young campaigner has been chosen to fight for the rights of women around the world.
Arifa Nasim, 18, is going global to help an international children’s charity after being selected to join the Advisory Panel (YAP) of Plan UK. Eighteen youths from across the UK have been selected to advise the charity on their projects.
The group have a special focus on the organisation’s Because I am a Girl campaign, which focuses on achieving equality. Arifa said: “I want to speak up against honour based violence such as female genital mutilation and forced marriage.
“I am hugely passionate about educating women as I believe education is an incredibly powerful tool to unlock the infinite potential we have as young women.”
Arifa has already been campaigning in Waltham Forest for a number of years to help end #forcedmarriage, speaking in schools and delivering child protection training.
Read more: http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/13219113.E17_teen_chosen_to_fight_for_women_s_rights/
The Muslim Women’s Network UK (MWNUK) is holding workshops across England in an attempt to come up with ideas on how to eradicate the problem.
The Birmingham-based charity, which aims to empower women and girls, is concerned that it still receives calls from teenagers who are being pressurised to marry against their will.
“It is still a huge problem, it is entrenched in culture,” said Faeeza Vaid, MWNUK executive director.
“We all need to be unified to say it [forced marriage] is against the law, human rights and an injustice.” Forced marriage was outlawed in June 2014 in England and Wales. Scotland passed similar legislation in September 2014 and it was made an offence in Northern Ireland in January this year.
Anyone found guilty of forcing a person to wed could face up to seven years in prison. But MWNUK says young people are still being coerced into marriage and incidents are hugely under-reported.
The government’s Forced Marriage Unit says it dealt with 1,267 cases in the UK last year.
Read More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32816431
Many of the questions read out during assembly at Newcastle High School for Girls reflected the everyday concerns of teenagers: career ambitions, family, the weather.
Others, less so: HIV infection, rape and how to avoid being forced into marriage before the end of school also came up.
When Hilary French (pictured, centre left), headteacher of the Newcastle upon Tyne independent school, was invited to accompany representatives from the girls’rights charity Plan UK on a trip to Uganda, she asked her pupils to compile a list of questions for their Ugandan counterparts.
“They wrote the kinds of questions you’d expect secondary school girls here to ask,” Mrs French said. “What do you like reading? What subjects do you like at school? What’s your favourite food? Do you go to the cinema? What do you want to be?” She took the questions with her during her visit to a girls’ school in Kamuli, a rural area of Uganda. And, along with the answers, she returned to Newcastle with a list of reciprocal questions from the Ugandan teenagers.
Some of the questions were exactly what the Newcastle pupils might have expected: “What’s the weather like in your country?” and “Is your country as beautiful as ours?” And then there were others. “My parents want me to get married, and I’m only 13,” one Ugandan girl wrote. “What do you think I should do?”
Read More: https://www.tes.co.uk/news/school-news/breaking-news/questions-uganda-stump-newcastle-schoolgirls
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is an internationally known women’s rights advocate and a best-selling author, but now she has some Silicon Valley muscle behind her in her battle to end two of radical Islam’s most barbaric practices.
Ali, a Somali-born activist who went on to become a member of the Dutch parliament and now lives in the U.S., won over Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, along with his personal pledge of $100,000, in her fight to put a stop to female genital mutilation and honor killings.
“I don’t see how anyone who believes in the rule of law and the rights of women could do anything other than support efforts to end female-genital mutilation, forced marriage and honor-killings — practices that have no place in the 21st century,” Schmidt told Ali after the two met at a recent conference.
Ali, whose courageous fight against radical Islam and the toll it takes on women has earned her a spot on Al Qaeda’s hit list and gotten her disinvited to a Brandeis University ceremony in which she was to have received an honorary degree, said Schmidt’s backing is a huge boost to her AHA Foundation.
“I feel massive gratitude,” Ali told Fox News. “I find him to be incredibly brave when so few people, especially in his league, make this choice. I think he has a very sound understanding of the creed of liberalism.”
A Phoenix woman forced into an arranged marriage was brought against her will to her “husband’s” apartment on Monday, where police say she was violently sexually assaulted.
According to court documents obtained by New Times, the woman’s parents “married” her to 30-year-old Mohamed Abdullahi without her knowledge in November. Court documents show the marriage was done as part of a “Muslim custom called ‘Nikah.'” The documents describe the two as being joined “culturally.”
Police say the young woman learned of her arranged marriage in December, and she fled the state upon hearing the news. After 15 days out of state, she returned to Phoenix to finish high school.
On Monday, multiple family members brought her to Abdullahi’s apartment “against her will,” according to court records.
Once at the apartment, near 33rd and Van Buren streets, Abdullahi punched her in the face and started to strangle her with one hand around her throat, police say.
Abdullahi tore off her clothes, continued to slap her and bite her, and ultimately sexually assaulted her, according to court documents.
“During the entire incident, the victim was not free to leave and physically held against her will,” the arresting officer writes in a probable-cause statement. “The defendant placed his mattress against the door so the victim could not leave after he fell asleep.”
Read More: http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2015/04/muslim_arranged_marriage_sexual_assault_phoenix_nikah.php
