close hide page

Posts Tagged ‘forced marriage’

FGM: ‘It’s like neutering animals’ – the film that is changing Kurdistan

A young girl is given a plastic bag of sweets and a bottle of lemonade after being genitally mutilated … the story of the 10-year fight against female genital mutilation by two film-makers has been made into a hour long documentary by the Guardian and BBC Arabic and will go out across the Arab world from Friday, reaching a combined global audience of 30 million viewers. This is the Guardian’s shorter web version of that film

It started out as a film about a practice that has afflicted tens of millions of women worldwide. It culminated in a change in the law.

Ten years after they embarked on a documentary to investigate the extent of female genital mutilation in Kurdistan, two film-makers have found their work changing more than just opinions in a fiercely conservative part of the world. Partly as a result of the film, the numbers of girls being genitally mutilated in the villages and towns of Iraqi Kurdistan has fallen by more than half in the last five years.

Shara Amin and Nabaz Ahmed spent 10 years on the roads of Kurdistan speaking to women and men about the impact of female genital mutilation (FGM) on their lives, their children and their marriages. “It took a lot of time to convince them to speak to us. This was a very taboo subject. Speaking about it on camera was a very brave thing to do.

“It took us weeks, sometimes months to get them to talk and in the end it was the women that spoke out – despite the men,” said Ahmed. The result was a 50-minute film, A Handful of Ash. When it was shown in the Kurdish parliament, it had a profound effect on the lawmakers. The film-makers’ work began in 2003, shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The stories they were told had a numbing consistency. In one scene in the documentary a young mother with her children sitting beside her tells Shara that in their village: “They would just grab the little girls, take them and cut them, and the girls came back home. I can still remember I was sick, infected for three months. I could barely walk after I was cut.”

Read More: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/oct/24/female-genital-mutilation-film-changing-kurdistan-law

Lawyer warns of dangers in changes on forced marriage

Scotland’s planned adoption of England’s laws on forced marriage have been described as “dangerous” and “retrograde” by a leading expert.

The warning comes as the ­Scottish Government draws up plans to amend its forced marriages legislation introduced in 2011, following a recent European ruling.

A new report has shown women’s support agencies in ­Scotland have experienced a significant increase in referrals, and follows the rare testimony of a victim in yesterday’s Sunday Herald.

Lawyer John Fotheringham, who was one of the leading ­proponents of the 2011 legislation, said: “This will stop the victims of forced marriage seeking a nullity because it would criminalise the family. We are failing the victims if we go down this route and it could be dangerous for them. “Under the current law, the ­criminality lies in breaching an order. The order itself can be drawn very flexibly.

Mr Fotheringham, an associate with bto solicitors, said: “This [change] is a retrograde step. The point of the Scottish position is that a young person will be dissuaded from seeking an order if the order itself will criminalise members of her family.”

 

Read More: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/lawyer-warns-of-dangers-in-changes-on-forced-marriage.22463588

Greece girl Maria ‘bought as an investment by jailed foster parents’

Greek police believe Gypsy family planned to make big money by selling her into a forced marriage at the age of just 12.

The jailed foster parents of little ‘blonde angel’ Maria bought her as an “investment” to cash in on the biggest tradition of the gypsy world, police believe. The youngster is thought to have been bought young, with the intention of making big money by selling her into a forced marriage at the age of just 12. Police are investigating whether Maria, believed to be aged five or six, was being prepared for sale to a wealthy gypsy leader. Marriage at the age of 12 is common practice in many traditional Roma communities, with the bride’s family getting a pay-out from the new in-laws.

Because Maria was seen as a “white-skinned beauty” within the gypsy camp, she would be considered a “prize investment”. A police source said: “The money a family gets in the case of marriage is negotiable at a high level, especially with a prize catch like Maria. “This could be like a business deal which would give them a profit at the end of it when they sell to the highest bidder.” It could explain why a family with 13 other registered children – and raking in more than £2,000 in benefits a month – kept another mouth to feed for more than four years.
Read More: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/greece-girl-maria-bought-investment-2485445#ixzz2iqCkPIvO

Determinants of child and forced marriage in Morocco: stakeholder perspectives on health, policies and human rights

In Morocco, the social and legal framework surrounding sexual and reproductive health has transformed greatly in the past decade, especially with the introduction of the new Family Law or Moudawana. Yet, despite raising the minimum age of marriage for girls and stipulating equal rights in the family, child and forced marriage is widespread.

The objective of this research study was to explore perspectives of a broad range of professionals on factors that contribute to the occurrence of child and forced marriage in Morocco.  Methods: A qualitative approach was used to generate both primary and secondary data for the analysis. Primary data consist of individual semi-structured interviews that were conducted with 22 professionals from various sectors: health, legal, education, NGO’s and government.

Sources of secondary data include academic papers, government and NGO reports, various legal documents and media reports. Data were analyzed using thematic qualitative analysis.  Results: Four major themes arose from the data, indicating that the following elements contribute to child and forced marriage: (1) the legal and social divergence in conceptualizing forced and child marriage; (2) the impact of legislation; (3) the role of education; and (4) the economic factor.

Emphasis was especially placed on the new Family Code or Moudawana as having the greatest influence on advancement of women’s rights in the sphere of marriage. However, participants pointed out that embedded patriarchal attitudes and behaviours limit its effectiveness.

Read More: http://7thspace.com/headlines/445657/determinants_of_child_and_forced_marriage_in_morocco_stakeholder_perspectives_on_health_policies_and_human_rights.html

ndia, The Country With The Largest Number Of Child Marriages In The World, Refuses To Back UN Resolution To End Child Marriages

The United Nations has announced an initiativeto end child marriages worldwide, but India, the country with the most child brides, isn’t getting behind it.

The UN Human Rights Council resolution seeks to put an end to all child, early and forced marriages throughout the world, and already, 107 countries have co-sponsored it. However, India has not given its support because, according to officials in the country, the resolution provides a vague definition of an early marriage. “We have laws against child marriage and forced marriage,” claimed an Indian official. “But since early marriage has not been defined anywhere, there was no clarity on the legal implication of co-sponsoring the resolution against early marriage.”

Reports show that India has about 24 million child brides, making it the country with the largest number of them worldwide. Many countries in South Asia have loose laws on early and child marriages, with India’s seemingly being the most lax.

Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director of the Human Rights Watch, says that early and child marriages ruin the lives of the ones involved.

“Early marriage cuts short [girls’] education, places them at risk of domestic abuse and marital rape, and makes them economically dependent,” says Meenakshi Gangul, South Asia director of Human Rights Watch, to TIME Magazine. “It has a profoundly detrimental impact on their physical and mental well-being.”

Read More: http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/india-country-largest-number-child-marriages-world-refuses-back-un-resolution-end-child#

Putting an end to forced marriage in Australia

According to Human Rights Watch, 14 million girls are married, worldwide, each year – with some as young as eight or nine. While early and forced marriage appears most prevalent in countries of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, several recent cases have shown Australia is not immune to the practise.

If the global trend continues, Human Rights Watch estimates that 142 million children will be married by 2020.

Snapshot of Australia

There is no Australian research on the prevalence of forced marriage but the issue was brought to the fore following several recent high-profile family court cases. A 2010 case involving a 13 year-old Victorian girl began when her school alerted the state’s child protection service that she was not attending school. The school suggested the girl’s absence may be due to her parents preparing her for marriage to a fiance they had chosen for her – a 17 year-old living overseas.

Consequently, the Department of Human Services initiated proceedings in the Family Court that eventually resulted in the court ordering the girl not be removed from Australia before she turned 18. The court also ordered that her passport be surrendered, that her parents be restrained from applying for another passport on her behalf and that her name be placed on the Australian Federal Police watchlist until her 18th birthday. The next year, another prominent case came before the family court. The girl (known as Ms Kreet) had just finished year 12 and had a boyfriend (known as “Mr U”) who lived in Australia. Ms Kreet’s parents told her she was to travel to their home country to marry Mr U there. But they deceived her and had another man in mind.

Read More: http://theconversation.com/putting-an-end-to-forced-marriage-in-australia-17827

“Forced marriage is probably the last form of slavery in the UK.” — Nazir Afzal, Chief Crown Prosecutor for Northwest England.

More than a dozen Muslim clerics at some of the biggest mosques in Britain have been caught on camera agreeing to marry off girls as young as 14.

Undercover reporters filming a documentary about the prevalence of forced and underage marriage in Britain for the television program ITV Exposure secretly recorded 18 Muslim imams agreeing to perform an Islamic marriage, known as a nikah, between a 14-year-old girl and an older man. Campaigners against forced marriage — which is not yet a crime in Britain — say thousands of underage girls — including some under the age of five — are being forced to marry against their will in Muslim nikahs every year, and that the examples exposed by the documentary represent just “the tip of the iceberg.”

The documentary, entitled “Forced to Marry,” was first broadcast on October 9 and involves two reporters posing as the mother and brother of a 14-year-old girl to be married to an older man. The reporters contacted 56 mosques across Britain and asked clerics to perform a nikah. The imams were specifically told that the “bride” did not consent to the marriage to an older man from London. Although the legal age for marriage in Britain is 16, according to Islamic Sharia law girls can marry once they reach puberty. The imams who agreed to marry the girl openly mocked the legitimacy of British law, reflecting the rise of a parallel Islamic legal system in Britain.

 

Read More: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4017/uk-muslim-underage-marriage

Christian Girl Kidnapped and Forced Into Islamic Marriage

This is a message from our Rescue Christians team in Pakistan, just to show you how brutal life is for Christians and what type of rescue work we are doing in that country:

On August 22, 2013, three Pakistani Muslim men – Umar Saghar, Muhammad Kashif and Shahid Nazir – abducted Shama Nasir, a 15-year-old who is the second child of Nasir Masih. A few days before this incident occurred, these three men visited Nasir Masih and asked him to embrace Islam, which he refused instantly. Then, on August 22, when Nasir Masih was at work, they entered the house and beat his wife and children before kidnapping Shama, his 15-year old daughter.

That night, Nasir Masih – along with some local Christians – went to the police station to register a complaint against Umar Saghar, Muhammad Kashif and Shahid Nazir. However, instead of taking their application, the police stated that his daughter Shama had embraced Islam and was married to Umar Saghar. The police humiliated Nasir Masih and other Christians, threatening to put them in jail if they came back.  Nasir Masih went to several Christian NGOs and churches to help him to rescue his daughter, but no help was provided. Soon thereafter, Nasir Masih contacted us through one of the previous victims we had helped. On September 9, we investigated the matter. We engaged with some of the influential Muslims through our lawyers to help us rescue the young girl. After two days of meetings with Muslim clerics and influential political persons, we were able to rescue Shama Nasir from Umar Saghar.

Initially, Umar Saghar refused to hand Shama over, stating that “she is his wife now and he will not return her.” Some of the Muslim clerics who backed Umar also stated that “she is Muslim now and you cannot take her back.” However, our team and a Muslim friend pressured Umar and Muslim cleric Qari Aslam to bring the girl to the meeting and to ask her if she accepts being a Muslim and remaining the wife of Umar. Then this matter would immediately be finished. On the evening of the September 11 – as soon as Shama saw her father – she began shouting, requesting her rescue from Umar, saying that “she did not accept Islam and that Umar had forcibly put her thumb print on various legal papers.” Shama also said – in front of everyone – that “I want to go with my father.”

 

Read More: http://frontpagemag.com/2013/theodore-shoebat/christian-girl-kidnapped-and-forced-into-islamic-marriage/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=christian-girl-kidnapped-and-forced-into-islamic-marriage

Yemeni child brides enslaved though poverty and tradition

SANAA – Forced into marriage when she was only 13, Saadah is now back in her impoverished Yemeni family’s cramped home with two children, little money and dreams of returning to school.

“I don’t want a husband ever again. All I want is to get a divorce and study,” Saadah says as she sits in the small room she shares with her two boys, dark circles shading her weary eyes.  “Child brides,” or “death brides” as they are sometimes called, are quite common in poor, tribal Yemen, where barely pubescent girls are forced into marriage, often to much older men.

Saadah’s ill father, no longer able to sustain his family, married her off five years ago in an attempt to spare her from her family’s poverty. But her husband soon began forcing her to beg on the capital’s streets with her boys until she fled back to her parents’ home. “He would beat and verbally abuse me and my family,” says Saadah, now 18, whose name means happiness in Arabic.

She is dressed in black from head to toe, but there are still traces of fading orange henna on the fingernails of her fidgety hands. Her two boys, aged three and four, look on as she recounts the nightmare of her marriage. “My life is difficult with my parents, as we rely on small amounts of aid from our neighbours to survive. But this is still better than living with my husband,” Saadah says. Her 16-year-old sister Amnah was also forced to marry, and wed a man who agreed to pay her father’s 20,000 riyals ($93) worth of debt three years ago.

Read More: http://www.enca.com/world/yemeni-child-brides-enslaved-though-poverty-and-tradition

STAY IN TOUCH
SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER