{"id":379,"date":"2013-11-10T08:51:57","date_gmt":"2013-11-10T08:51:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/?p=379"},"modified":"2013-11-09T11:59:59","modified_gmt":"2013-11-09T11:59:59","slug":"judge-admits-he-is-powerless-to-quash-marriage-of-british-muslim-girl-who-was-taken-to-pakistan-and-forced-to-wed-at-gunpoint-aged-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/judge-admits-he-is-powerless-to-quash-marriage-of-british-muslim-girl-who-was-taken-to-pakistan-and-forced-to-wed-at-gunpoint-aged-14\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge admits he is powerless to quash marriage of British Muslim girl who was taken to Pakistan and forced to wed at gunpoint aged 14"},"content":{"rendered":"

A judge says he cannot nullify the marriage of a teenage mother who says she was forced at ‘gunpoint’ into becoming a bride when she was just 14.<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead the girl, now 17 and a mother of a one-year-old, must defy her family if she wants the union formally annulled, said Mr Justice Holman at the High Court.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

The teenager, who was born in Britain and whose family has lived here for 40 years, says she was shipped out to Pakistan to contract a forced marriage with a 24-year-old man two years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

She told how she was subjected to ‘harrowing’ violence and menaced with a gun to go through with the ceremony – and was two weeks later forced to have sex with her \u2018husband\u2019, giving birth to his baby who is now aged just over one.<\/span><\/p>\n

After she came forward with her account, her local authority took both her and her baby into care and asked Mr Justice Holman to formally declare that her marriage – which effectively made her a rape victim – could never have been recognised under English law.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, in a unique decision, the judge ruled that – although the girl was under extreme duress and aged under 16 at the time – he was barred by statute from granting a declaration that her marriage was ‘at its inception, void’.<\/span><\/p>\n

Expressing sympathy for the girl and the ‘real stigma’ she faced, the judge said his hands were tied and he simply had no power to make a formal ruling that ‘there never was a marriage’ capable of recognition in England and Wales.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read More:\u00a0http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-2487658\/Judge-powerless-quash-forced-marriage-British-Muslim-girl-14-taken-Pakistan.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A judge says he cannot nullify the marriage of a teenage mother who says she was forced at ‘gunpoint’ into becoming a bride when she was just 14. Instead the girl, now 17 and a mother of a one-year-old, must defy her family if she wants the union formally annulled, said Mr Justice Holman at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[19,4,3],"class_list":["post-379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-forced","tag-halo-project","tag-haloproject"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":380,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379\/revisions\/380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}