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Posts Tagged ‘haloproject’

“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

Iraqi Women Victimized By Tribal Marriage Customs

NINEVEH, Iraq — She set her small body on fire after pouring several liters of kerosene over herself and lighting a match. This is how she ended her life after her father refused to allow her to marry her lover and insisted she marry someone she did not know.

Shahnaz, who was not yet 25 years old, died at a burn center in Nineveh in April 2010 after physicians failed to save her from the injuries that disfigured her entire body. She is now another number on the long list of tragic victims of forced marriages. Kalnaz, Shahnaz’s younger sister, described the incident to Al-Monitor: “It was an ominous day, [but] we did not expect her to carry out this disastrous act.” She added, “Fire devoured my sister’s body while she screamed out against all those who were unjust to her.”

The decision made by Layla, 27, was different. She acquiesced to a marriage that she was forced into by her family, to live a life that she described as a “silent death,” rather than a “scandalous death,” after her family refused to allow her to marry her university classmate.

Layla wiped away her tears as she said, “It’s possible that my father and brothers could have killed me to remove the stain on their honor, had they suspected that I was refusing to marry one of my cousins because of a relationship with my classmate, who they had not allowed me to marry.” She added, “I had no other option.” The problem of forced marriage is not limited to Layla and Shahnaz. Thousands of women in all parts of Iraq share the same problem in the patriarchal and tribal society. The freedom of women, in general, is limited and their love lives, if discovered by the family, can create a pretext for her murder.

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/09/iraq-women-forced-marriage-tribal-customs.html#ixzz2hbS56R5R

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

Ottawa to take a closer look at forced marriage issues

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.

 Read More: http://www.thestar.com/news/immigration/2013/09/25/ottawa_to_take_a_closer_look_at_forced_marriage_issues.html#

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

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.”

Read more: http://www.parentdish.co.uk/2013/09/06/six-year-old-rape-victim-forced-to-marry-her-attackers-eight-year-old-son/

‘My husband treated me as a sex object. He saw marriage as a means to act like a depraved animal’: Yemeni child bride who was married to a man three times her age when she was just ELEVEN

A Yemeni child bride who was forced to marry a violent husband three times her age when she was just 11 has spoken of the shocking sexual abuse she suffered at his hands for more than a decade.

Noora Al Shami was given away to a distant cousin in his 30s because her parents did not want her live in poverty. As young girl, she was excited to be the centre of attention at a lavish three-day wedding party in the port city of Al Hudaydah where she was allowed to wear ‘three really beautiful dresses’ for each day. But almost as soon as the celebrations had ended she was quickly thrust into a world of physical and psychological abuse from which she could not escape.

She told The Guardian: ‘It was at the end of the wedding that the fear and horror set in.  ‘He was three times my age and saw marriage as a means to act like a depraved animal.’ She told how she ‘immediately began to quiver and cry’ when she was driven to the house her husband shared with his father. When the clerical worker first took off his clothes, she ran away in terror and desperately avoided sex for 10 days. And when she was eventually pressured into consummating the marriage, she said her body went into shock and she was rushed to hospital. She described being ‘treated like a sex object’ but said no one was interested in helping her because she was ‘legally his wife’.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2440155/Yemeni-child-bride-Noora-Al-Shami-forced-marry-abusive-older-husband.html#ixzz2h3KZhLyO
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The Pakistani refuge rescuing UK girls from forced marriage

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.

Read more:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24397026

Clerics at 18 mosques are caught agreeing to marry off girls of 14: Four imams investigated after undercover operation

More than a dozen Muslim clerics have been caught agreeing to marry off girls as young as 14.Four imams are now under investigation, after they offered to arrange the illegal ceremonies. Undercover reporters, posing as the mother and brother of a 14-year-old, contacted 56 mosques  across the country and asked clerics to perform an Islamic marriage ceremony, known as a nika. Imams at 18 mosques agreed – including one who has advised the police.  The preacher was prepared to arrange the nika despite being told that the ‘bride’ was being forced to move in with a man against her wishes.

The revelations will raise questions about how prevalent underage marriage is in Britain. Campaigners claim thousands of girls are forced into the illegal ceremonies every year, in a boom fuelled by the ‘moral blindness of cultural sensitivity’.  Such weddings are not recognised by UK law.  Marriages can only be officially registered if both parties are over 16, which is also the age of sexual consent.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2447720/Clerics-18-mosques-caught-agreeing-marry-girls-14-Four-imams-investigated-undercover-operation.html#ixzz2h3HzHPJC

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