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Project Halo Director Yasmin Khan named Middlesbrough’s Citizen of the Year 2013

Published: December 18th, 2013 Updated: October 17th, 2022

Top citizen for devotion to community: Yasmin Khan named Middlesbrough’s Citizen of the Year 2013

A woman who has gone the extra mile for her community has been named Middlesbrough’s Citizen of the Year 2013.

Yasmin Khan received the prestigious award from Middlesbrough Mayor Ray Mallon at a special ceremony at Middlesbrough Town Hall last night.

“I’m really surprised but delighted,” said Yasmin, who lives in Acklam with her husband, Yusuf, a graphic designer, 18-year-old daughter, Larayb, and son Ameer, 16.

The accolade marks the 45-year-old’s contribution to a wide range of organisations and community groups and follows a Middlesbrough Mayor’s Award earlier in the year.

“I’m from London originally and I came to Middlesbrough just over 17 years ago,” said Yasmin, an equality and diversity manager at Vela Group.

“I come from a banking background but when I came to the North-east I started doing some community teaching with different BME groups.

“It was a complete career change.”

Working with Middlesbrough Council, Yasmin helped to establish the BME (Black and Minority Ethnic) Network to give individuals and minority groups a voice and influence over the way services are delivered.

She established Ojalah, the first BME older women’s group, in 1999, the first BME group to get funding from Age UK in the Middlesbrough area.

Recent projects have included a European programme which provided employment opportunities for more than 49 individuals from the BME community, one of the top three performing projects of its kind in the country.

Currently Yasmin is involved with a number of community and voluntary sector organisations focusing on improving cohesion and diversity, including helping women and those suffering disadvantage as well as the Crown Prosecution Service’s race and scrutiny panel.

Middlesbrough’s Citizen of the Year award was set up to honour members of the local community who go above and beyond the call of duty to improve the lives of others.

Mr Mallon said: “Over the past decade, Yasmin Khan has made a significant contribution to the community of Middlesbrough through her involvement in many projects and initiatives concerning a whole host of issues, but the promotion of the harmony and diversity agenda is what she is best known for.

“Her work has affected the whole town as well as the Teesside area, and due to her drive and determination she has been able to change countless lives through a desire to ensure a fair an equal society exists for all.”

He added: “This award is richly deserved by Yasmin and, if anything, it should have been awarded years ago.”

Source: http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/yasmin-khan-named-middlesbroughs-citizen-6416188

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Cultural fears hinder war on ‘honour’ killing, says film-maker

Published: December 13th, 2013 Updated: December 1st, 2021

Political correctness is hampering the fight against so-called honour-based violence in Britain, a campaigner has warned.

Deeyah Khan, whose documentary about the victim of an “honour” killing from London recently won an Emmy, called for the police to set up a specialist unit to deal with the problem.

The UK-based film-maker, whose parents are from Pakistan and Afghanistan, said there were police departments dealing with witchcraft and gang violence, but none dedicated to investigating “honour” violence.

Speaking at an international conference on women’s rights in London, Ms Khan compared it with organised crime. She said it needed specialist policing because there were multiple perpetrators.

“The victims have to be protected in a certain way. They are at risk from their entire communities,” she said. “There are aunties and cab drivers and even people in dole offices looking out for the women. There are bounty hunters and hitmen who don’t even take money to kill them, they do it because they see it as a necessity.”

Ms Khan’s film Banaz: A Love Story documented the case of Banaz Mahmod, an Iraqi Kurd from Mitcham who was murdered by her family in 2006, and her body buried in a suitcase in Handsworth, Birmingham. The film won an Emmy for best international documentary in October. She said: “It is awful that these crimes happen anywhere, but the fact it is happening here in the UK is unacceptable.” She added that people were afraid to get involved because of political correctness and a sense that “we don’t want to step on the toes of communities”.

She said: “But if the outcome is our young people die or suffer,  what good is that kind of politeness? Our silence allows this to happen.”

Read More: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/cultural-fears-hinder-war-on-honour-killing-says-filmmaker-8988229.html

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Is the law in Yemen moving closer to a ban on child marriage?

Published: December 12th, 2013 Updated: December 1st, 2021

(WNN/EQ) Amman, JORDAN, WESTERN ASIA: The Human Rights Ministry of Yemen has confirmed that one of its officials has helped to prevent the wedding of a 12-year-old girl, which was due to take place earlier this month. Hiba was to be married in Taiz, Southern Yemen, but the official notified local police who ensured an immediate divorce. There have been reports too of similar interventions taking place in other parts of the country.

With no minimum age of marriage in Yemen, while Hiba and others are out of danger for the moment, without any legal sanctions to support them, these girls remain at serious risk.

However, things may be about to change at last. The Human Rights Ministry, under Hooria Mashhour’s strong leadership, has put child marriage at the top of its agenda. This ministry has been responsible for putting pressure on other members of government to ensure that a minimum age of marriage draft bill is introduced at the next opportunity as part of the ‘National Dialogue’, the process which has followed the country’s recent political uprising.

Fouad Al Ghaffari from the Ministry has indicated that this bill might be introduced by the Minister of Legal Affairs in the very near future. It will probably be based on a 2009 bill, which had proposed fixing the minimum age of marriage for girls at age 17. This was initially backed by Yemeni women and children’s rights organizations, but in late 2010, it was effectively blocked by traditional and religious leaders and the parliament’s Shariah committee. It is hoped that there will be more support on this occasion, but it is far from certain.

Read More: http://womennewsnetwork.net/2013/11/20/yemen-ban-child-marriage/

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Schoolgirls in Finland forced abroad for arranged marriages

Published: December 11th, 2013 Updated: December 9th, 2013

Yle has learned that girls from immigrant families at a school in Western Finland have been sent abroad into forced marriages. Teachers say they are aware of the situation but are unable to do anything about it.

“I’ve encountered situations where marriages have already been arranged for girls who’ve come here from elsewhere. Some of them are actually pleased with the situation, but there are some who want to continue their studies,” says a teacher at the school.

The teacher points out that not all youngsters from other cultures are aware of Finland’s equality standards.

“In some cases, girls who’ve been subjected to genital mutilation open up to Finnish adults about the pain they have experienced. You get the feeling that this is not right. It’s not according to any religion, it’s a cultural thing,” the teacher says.

Should forced marriage be criminalised?

Under Finnish law, forced marriage can be defined as human trafficking and therefore as a crime — but not a single case has so far been investigated.

“We receive 15-20 inquiries annually about forced marriage. But these cases are kind of hidden, so we can assume that these are just the tip of the iceberg,” says Natalie Gerbert of the Monika Multicultural Women’s Association of Finland, an umbrella organization for groups of women of ethnic minorities.

Read More: http://yle.fi/uutiset/schoolgirls_in_finland_forced_abroad_for_arranged_marriages/6945417

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Saudi woman elopes, seeks asylum in Yemen

Published: December 10th, 2013 Updated: December 9th, 2013

Saudi woman elopes, seeks asylum in Yemen

Her outraged family alleges that her lover cast a magic spell and kidnapped her

 

Sana’a: A Saudi woman who fled her home last month to seek asylum in Yemen said that she would rather die than be forced to return home and marry a man she did not love.

“She has repeatedly said that she would kill herself if she was forced to return home and not be allowed to marry her beloved Arafat”, Abul Rageeb Al Ghadhi, the girl’s lawyer, told Gulf News.

The girl’s case came to the fore when the Saudi daily Okaz reported in mid-October that a Saudi man’s 21-year old daughter Huda had been abducted from their house in the Saudi province of Asir. Nearly ten days after her disappearance, Huda appeared before a Yemeni court saying that she was not abducted but willingly ran away from her family’s home to Yemen when her family refused her beloved’s marriage proposal.

The girl told the Saudi website Okaz Al Youm that she and Arafat had been in contact with each other on the sly for three years. “I love him and I told my family that I would only marry him.

Read More :http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/yemen/saudi-woman-elopes-seeks-asylum-in-yemen-1.1257298

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Afghan landmark law failing to protect women: UN

Published: December 9th, 2013 Updated: December 9th, 2013

Kabul — The UN mission in Afghanistan on Sunday criticised authorities for poor implementation of a landmark law to protect women, 12 years after the repressive Taliban regime was ousted from power.

Donor nations, led by the US, point to the Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW) law as a prized symbol of the success of the international effort in Afghanistan since 2001. But a report released by the UN said that prosecutions and convictions remained low under the 2009 law, which criminalises child marriage, forced marriage, forced self-immolation, rape and other violence against women.

“Implementation has been slow and uneven, with police still reluctant to enforce the legal prohibition against violence,” Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said. “Afghan authorities need to do much more to build on the gains made so far in protecting women and girls.”

The report comes amid fears that as the NATO-led military mission prepares to withdraw by the end of next year, religious conservatives are seeking to increase their influence and undermine advances in women’s rights. The report said that of about 1,670 registered incidents of violence against women in 16 provinces, only 109 cases — seven percent — went through a judicial process using the EVAW law.

Many cases were resolved through informal mediation, which often fails to protect women from further violence, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said.

Read More: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5joeWO95h8UycYSCaiGQR5jp6GL-g?docId=9fc8c97e-5e89-4b6d-b568-0b77cb6a9556

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Forced into marriage, man kills wife, passes it off as suicide

Published: December 5th, 2013 Updated: December 3rd, 2013

A man who allegedly killed his wife by smothering her to death with a pillow was arrested by police in Yeshwantpur late on Saturday night. 

According to investigating officers, the arrested, Gangaraju, 22, tried to pass off the death as a suicide.

Employed as an electrician on a contract basis at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO),  Gangaraju had married his cousin, Prema, 19, on July 29. Police added that Prema was the daughter of Gangaraju’s aunt. The couple had been living at a rented house in AK Colony, Mattikere.

 The death was first reported when Gangaraju rushed an unconscious Prema to M S Ramaiah Hospital at 11.30 pm, claiming that she had consumed poison. However, doctors at M S Ramaiah Hospital declared Prema dead on arrival and informed local police of the suspicious nature of the death. Yeshwantpur police rushed to the spot and detained Gangaraju for questioning. 

A senior police official said that a medical examination of the body contradicted Gangaraju’s statement about suicide. “While Gangaraju continued to claim that Prema had attempted suicide, it wasn’t long before he confessed to murder,” the official said.

Read More:  http://www.deccanherald.com/content/372245/forced-marriage-man-kills-wife.html

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Girls still sent to Kashmir for forced weddings

Published: December 4th, 2013 Updated: December 1st, 2021

MUZAFFARABAD, 18 November 2013 (IRIN) – From a distance, Jalila Ahmed* and Nabila Ahmed* look like ordinary village girls in their late teens, shopping at the local bazaar in a suburb of Mirpur, in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

But move in a little closer, and the differences are more obvious: they struggle to communicate with the vendors, sometimes giggling between themselves as they try to find a name for a particular vegetable or herb. When they speak to each other, they do so in English, with an accent closer to Bradford than Bahawalpur. But they are careful, because they have been told not to talk to each other.

The two teenagers, distant cousins, say they were both forced into marriages a year ago, after being brought to Mirpur from the UK to “attend a family wedding.” It was only after they arrived in the city that they discovered the marriages they were attending were their own, both to distant relatives.

undreds of cases of forced marriage are thought to take place annually, involving British nationals married against their will in Kashmir, particularly in and around the industrial town of Mirpur. Since the late 19th century, Kashmir has had a large diaspora – estimated to be around one million – with many communities concentrating in British cities like Bradford, Glasgow and London. To preserve their culture and traditions, some families favour sending their children – particularly daughters – back to Kashmir.

Campaigners say such marriages are cruel, leading to “murders and chaos”, either as couples fail to get along or when young women resist. Shafilea Ahmed, 17 years old at the time of her murder nine years ago in the UK, was the victim of one such crime, which made headlines when her parents were brought to trial.

Read More: http://www.irinnews.org/report/99149/girls-still-sent-to-kashmir-for-forced-weddings

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Moroccan Teenager Forced To Marry Her Rapist Kills Herself

Published: December 3rd, 2013 Updated: November 30th, 2013

Forced to marry the man who had raped her, a 16-year-old Moroccan girl committed suicide last month. She had been raped by another minor in the northern port city of Tetouan. As Abdel Ali El-Allawi, director of the local chapter of an international NGO, the Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH),  said to Al Jazeera, the rapist was first put into prison but that his family “entered negotiations with the family of the victim” and proposed that their son marry the teenager; her family assented.

Under Article 475 of the Moroccan Penal Code, rapists who marry their victims can be exonerated from their crime. He cannot be prosecuted unless the woman is able to obtain a divorce, a situation that is highly unlikely as, under Moroccan law, the decision of a judge authorizing such a marriage cannot be reversed.

Pressure to repeal the law rose last year after the suicide of 16-year-old Amina Filali, who killed herself with rat poison after she had been forced to marry her rapist who was ten years older than her. She had also been regularly beaten by her husband and mistreated by his family, whom she lived with after being married. After her suicide, her rapist was summoned by the police and then released.

Khadija Riyadi, president of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights, explains that a woman who loses her virginity is considered unmarriageable and guilty of dishonoring her family, even if she was raped.

Last year, women’s rights groups like Mouvement Alternatif pour les Libertés Individuelles (MALI) and women’s rights activists demonstrated and demanded that Article 475 be repealed. The calls to do so spread beyond Morocco, with a Twitter hashtag #RIPAmina calling for Article 475 to be eliminated.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/moroccan-teenager-forced-to-marry-her-rapist-kills-herself-2.html#ixzz2m8f02ejg

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