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Posts Tagged ‘forced marriage’

Ottawa to take a closer look at forced marriage issues

Published: October 11th, 2013 Updated: October 7th, 2013

Ottawa will review a set of recommendations on forced marriage made in a recent groundbreaking study by the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario. The report, released last week, found 219 reported cases of forced marriage in Ontario between 2010 and 2012. Some 97 per cent of the reported victims were women. The majority of the cases unearthed in the study, 81 per cent, involved victims 16 to 34 years old. Most were forcibly removed from Canada and married abroad.

“We take the issue of forced marriage very seriously and will review the report’s recommendations,” said Nancy Caron, spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada. “CIC visa officers are trained to identify all types of application fraud and work diligently to prevent it.” The Department of Justice is also reviewing the recommendations in the SALCO report, said spokesman Andrew Gowing. “The government is committed to protecting women and other vulnerable persons from all forms of abuse, including forced marriage,” he said.

Tags: forced marriage, forced marriage unit, Foreign Office, halo project, haloproject
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Six-year-old rape victim forced to marry her attacker’s eight-year-old son

Published: October 10th, 2013 Updated: October 7th, 2013

A six-year-old rape victim is being forced to marry the eight-year-old son of the man who attacked her, it is being reported in India.

It’s claimed the victim, who lives in the village of Keshavpura, in Rajasthan, was attacked by the 40-year-old around two weeks ago.
Instead of going to police, her family complained to council elders who held a meeting to decide what should happen to the alleged rapist. They then told the girl’s parents that their daughter must marry her attacker’s eight-year-old son – but the victim’s family has refused to accept the elders’ decision. Now police have became involved after social activists took the victim and her parents to a police station in Kota to file a complaint. The man was arrested and an investigation has been launched into the allegations against the council elder.

A police spokesman said: “He locked her in a room and raped her. Instead of registering a police complaint, elders belonging to the girl’s caste called a panchayat (village council) meeting.”

Tags: forced, forced marriage, halo project, haloproject, honour, honour based violence
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The Pakistani refuge rescuing UK girls from forced marriage

Published: October 8th, 2013 Updated: December 1st, 2021

Almost half of forced marriages involving Britons come from the Pakistani community. Amid calls from charities for the government to do more to keep track of how many children are forced into marriage during school holidays, a shelter in Pakistan is providing refuge for some of those who have managed to escape. At a secret address in Islamabad surrounded by security, Khalina Salimi runs a refuge that has become a lifeline to girls and boys who have escaped forced marriage in Pakistan.

Ms Salimi is the director of Sach (Struggle for Change) – and she and her team of caseworkers deal with the rescue, rehabilitation and repatriation of girls and boys from around the world. In the last year they have helped approximately 40 children and young people – 21 of whom came from the UK. Recent estimates suggest more than 5,000 people from the UK are forced into marriage every year and more than a third of those affected are aged under 16.

Some of the calls for help that Sach receives come from embassies and consulates that need assistance. Others come from the children themselves. “No one case is the same,” says Ms Salimi. “Sometimes we might get a call from them and if they are able we ask them to go to a shop and then we will go and get them,” she says.

“Sometimes we are alerted to a wedding which is being held in public. We would not take a car there because we might be noticed, so we take public transport to the event, and then we grab the girl and run, run, run.” ‘Solitary confinement’

Ms Salimi, a sociologist, set up Sach in 1994. Initially the victims were too scared to come and seek their help – now they receive thousands of calls annually.

Tags: forced marriage, halo project, haloproject, honour
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Australian Research Council rejects funding to research growing problem of forced marriages

Published: September 27th, 2013 Updated: December 1st, 2021

CRUCIAL funding to research the growing problem of teenage forced marriages was rejected by the under-fire Australian Research Council.

The federal and NSW governments have both questioned the decision to reject funding for the study, saying they fear child-bride marriages are far more common than previously thought. Associate Professor Jennifer Burn from the University of Technology, Sydney and Director of Anti-Slavery Australia, said she applied for funding to explore the issue of forced marriages in NSW, but her application was “knocked back” by the Council earlier this year.

Child bride reveals the dark secret of unspoken crime in Sydney

The Australian Research Council (ARC) has been accused by the newly-elected federal government of “wasteful” spending on unnecessary projects. This includes grants for research into how people could adapt to climate change through public art, and another project into the meaning of “I” involving a retrospective study of 18th and 19th century German existentialists. Ms Burn said the area of forced marriages was under-researched and her project sought to quantify how prevalent it was in the community. “There’s a lot of work to be done,” Ms Burn told The Sunday Telegraph, adding that in NSW it was widely suspected to be a much bigger problem than on paper.

Tags: abusive, bride, child brides, child exploitation, coerced, criminalisation, forced, forced marriage, halo project, haloproject
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Canada can make a difference in ending child and forced marriage

Published: September 26th, 2013 Updated: September 25th, 2013

Every September, global leaders descend on New York for an annual rite of passage. They go to mark the ceremonial opening of the United Nations General Assembly. Often characterized by high-level presidential and prime ministerial speeches, the UNGA is also an opportunity for in-the-trenches progress toward making the world a better place. One such opportunity will take place this Wednesday, Sept. 25.

On that day, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird will work to rally support from other countries to tackle an issue whose proper place, really, is in ancient history texts, but sadly continues to plague the world today: the ongoing practice of forcing children, mostly girls, to marry someone against their will. In the developing world, one in three girls takes wedding vows by the time she is 18. That translates into 14 million child marriages per year, often dooming these brides to lifelong servitude and misery. Clearly, child marriage is morally repugnant and a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that marriage requires “free and full consent.” But the issue goes well beyond human rights. Child marriage is a major impediment to poverty reduction and economic development. Child brides are almost always forced to drop their schooling and, thereby, become unable to contribute to achieving broader social and economic goals.

Enabling girls in developing countries to remain in school longer, on the other hand, would have a positive impact on them as well as the countries they live in. If children, especially girls, remain in school until at least age 15, they not only enhance essential reading and arithmetic knowledge but also learn life skills, including an appreciation of their basic rights and how to assert them. As well, those extra years take them through puberty, a time when many girls in the world first confront forced marriages or are shunted away from the classroom to focus on housework and other chores. Indeed, a girl with some secondary education is less likely to marry too young than a girl with only primary education or less. Eradicating child marriage also has significant health benefits, not only for young brides. The earlier a girl becomes pregnant, the higher the risk of death for both her and her children due to pregnancy and childbirth complications. In developing nations, these complications are the leading cause of death for girls aged 15 to 19. And infant deaths are 50 per cent more likely in these cases .

Yet the heinous tradition of child and forced marriage is by no means only a developing world phenomenon. In 2012, as many as 1,485 possible forced marriage cases prompted the attention and resources of the U.K. government’s Forced Marriage Unit which has been tasked with combatting the practice of forced marriage within Britain. There are signs this issue has made its mark in Canada as well.

Tags: forced marriage, halo project, haloproject, honour based violence, rape
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Afghan women gain education and rights but still face abuse, forced marriages

Published: September 26th, 2013 Updated: September 25th, 2013

KABUL — In a hidden shelter on the edge of the Afghan capital, a dozen girls and women crouched on thin cushions one recent afternoon, their faces drawn with fatigue and fear. Some had been found wandering the streets; others had travelled long distances in flight from abusive families, forced marriages or unhappy lives.

Raya, 18, a pretty girl with green eyes, said that when her parents insisted she quit school and marry a man they had chosen, she ran away instead. “Now we are living in a democracy, so we should have the right to choose,” she said. Shafia, 40, a hospital worker in an embroidered dress, told of being confined by her in-laws for 20 years. Last month, she fled. “I am an educated woman, and they wouldn’t even let me out to visit my parents,” she said. Twelve years after the overthrow of the Taliban, many Afghan women are caught in a confusing time warp. They are absorbing new ideas about freedom and rights through the Internet and attending school and college in record numbers. They are talking with men on cellphones and watching bedroom soap operas from India and Turkey.

Tags: forced marriage, Foreign Office, halo project, haloproject
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John Baird to lead UN session on kids forced into marriage

Published: September 26th, 2013 Updated: September 25th, 2013

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird is set to co-host a UN session looking at how to prevent early forced marriage in developing countries.

The session, “Too Young to Wed,” will discuss the plight of child brides and the implications on health and education for women when they’re married as children. Statistics provided by Baird’s office show girls under 15 years old are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their 20s, and children born to mothers under 18 years old are 60 per cent more likely to die in their first year of life. Childbirth is the leading cause of death for girls 15 to 18 years old. Girls living in poverty are twice as likely to be married before they turn 18.

Baird and Prime Minister Stephen Harper are in New York City for UN meetings on women and children. Baird will also make a speech to the UN General Assembly.

Tags: forced marriage, halo project, marriage, rape
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US probing Faisalabad forced marriage case

Published: September 26th, 2013 Updated: September 25th, 2013

WASHINGTON – The US State Department is investigating a case of an American girl of Pakistani origin who is reportedly being held against her will in Faisalabad where her family took her from Forsyth County, Georgia, on a false pretext and is now being forced into an ‘arranged’ marriage, according US media reports.
A department official told an American television reporter that they were aware of the case, and an investigation was on. “Due to privacy concerns, we can’t comment further. We have to protect American citizens.” The State Department reacted after Ms Humna Sheikh’s ” fiance” Richard Jones, her American colleague at a store, brought the case to its attention. Jones told channel2 reporter that he and Humna were in love with each other. “We were trying to re-establish relationships with her family,” Jones said. Instead, he said things turned violent. Jones said when her brother, Adeel Sheikh, saw them together he assaulted him in a parking lot.

The reporter said he verified a police report on the incident which said Adeel “grabbed Humna, threatened her if she disobeyed him and forced her into his vehicle.” Jones said Humna sent him text messages that she was scared and claimed her family bought her a ticket to Dubai with a promise. “They told her if you go on this trip, when you come back we will accept your relationship with a non-Muslim,” Jones said. Humna’s alleged Facebook page showed that she posted pictures of her Dubai trip, but they stopped on Aug 13. Jones said her family told Humna while she was in Dubai that her father had a heart attack. “She was tricked by her family to go into Pakistan and as soon as she got to Pakistan, they abducted her. They locked her up in her house and took away her US passport and told her she cannot escape. They said if she tried, she would be killed or harmed. They were going to force her into a marriage with someone she does not know,” Jones said. “Are you 100 percent sure she didn’t try to get away and get away from you?” the reporter asked Jones. “150 percent sure,” he said. Jones created a website, rescuehumna.org, and a Facebook page.

Tags: forced, forced marriage, halo project, haloproject, honour based violence
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Volunteer attacked while trying to rescue girl in Noida

Published: September 25th, 2013 Updated: September 25th, 2013

A woman volunteer with the Noida chapter of Association for India’s Development (AID) was attacked and seriously injured while trying to rescue a minor girl being forced to marry in Sector 15 of Noida a few days ago. The girl was eventually rescued by her colleagues and produced before a Child Welfare Committee that has sent her to a shelter home. On the night of September 18, AID Noida’s Linkan Subbuddhi received a call from one of the students enrolled with her community school that she was being forced into marriage. Since the girl was a minor, Ms. Subuddhi decided to rescue her. The following morning she met the girl and was talking to her when a man attacked her.

Ms. Subuddhi tried to escape but was cornered at a dead end. The assailant then attempted to strangle her, pushed her down on the road and then hit her repeatedly on the head with a brick. The perpetrator fled the spot after the AID volunteer lost consciousness. Some members of the community rushed her to Kailash Hospital and she was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit. The girl was rescued by the other AID volunteers. Condemning the incident, an AID official said: “A few months ago, Ms. Subuddhi had intervened to protect the same student from forced marriage and then the girl’s mother had taken her to a village to marry her off. Ms. Subuddhi had then contacted the Child Welfare Committee and local authorities, who stepped in to protect the girl.” The community members also detained the girl’s mother and handed her over to the police, which have received a complaint regarding the attack on the AID Noida volunteer.

Tags: Asian, forced, forced marriage, halo project
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Posts Tagged ‘forced marriage’

Ottawa to take a closer look at forced marriage issues

Six-year-old rape victim forced to marry her attacker’s eight-year-old son

The Pakistani refuge rescuing UK girls from forced marriage

Australian Research Council rejects funding to research growing problem of forced marriages

Canada can make a difference in ending child and forced marriage

Afghan women gain education and rights but still face abuse, forced marriages

John Baird to lead UN session on kids forced into marriage

US probing Faisalabad forced marriage case

Volunteer attacked while trying to rescue girl in Noida

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