Forced Marriages in Britain Worry Government
Via the German newspaper the Spiegel comes the news that a new study has found that “the practice of forced marriage among immigrants in Britain is much more common than previously assumed.” Many thousands young girls and boys “have gone missing, many of whom might have been abducted by their own parents.” This, obviously, greatly worries the British government.
Forced marriages is a custom out of the dark ages. In my opinion, it should simply be made illegal for parents to force their children to marry (with a particular person). That’s my conscience talking. Practically spoken, though, it’s virtually impossible to punish those who break the law in this regard.
But that’s this practice is inhumane, for this day in age at least, is clear. Just read the following example:
Nora* was only one year old when her fate was decided. “My father promised my grandmother that my marriage would be arranged,” says the young woman from the southern English city of Luton. Her parents didn’t even like the groom.
In fact, as Nora puts it, “No one had the courage to fight for me.” And, so, when she was still a teenager, Nora’s parents took her to Pakistan and forced her to marry a man she didn’t love. Her father wept during the wedding ceremony but he kept his promise to her grandmother despite the misery caused to his young daughter.
One can’t exactly feel sorry for Nora’s father of course.
More:
Nora’s case and many forced marriages like it has been attracting mounting public attention in Britain. Sociologist Nazia Khanum produced a 90-page report about her hometown of Luton. It took her a full year — and much longer than she had predicted — to gain access to the subjects of her study. “I first had to win their trust,” Khanum told SPIEGEL ONLINE. When she published it recently she could be sure of maximum attention because it came shortly after the minister responsible for child safety, Kevin Brennan, had told a parliamentary committee that the problem of forced marriage was far greater than previously thought.
Take, for example, the northern English city of Bradford. The majority of the city’s population of 500,000 is Muslim. Brennan shocked his fellow MPs when he reported that 33 Bradford children under 16 of age have disappeared without trace. He wasn’t sure if the police in Bradford were even looking for the children.
According to Brennan’s report, the statistics look similar in an additional 14 communities with a high percentage of immigrants. All told, hundreds of children have disappeared from the school registers in Great Britain — whereabouts unknown.
What to do about this practice and these shocking numbers? Well, to start a grand debate is a good start. This practice has to be exposed. But that won’t be suffice: there should also be some kind of program to help those who are forced to marry someone they don’t know, and don’t want to do so. They should, in one way or another, be protected by the government.
Well if the country is going to start, not only recognizing, but subsidizing multiple marriages, how long will it be before arranged marriages are also similarly blessed? I can see it now, a government run office for the proper arrangement of marriages. All very respectful of "cultural diversity".
Ugh.
As far as protecting the young people forced into such situations, it’s a difficult situation. It would take lots of different measures. Here are some that occur to me:
1. Education. ALL children must receive a fundamental education, including one that teaches them that they should never be forced to be with anyone. Of course they will have their private Muslim schools, and to the extent that it is possible they should be controlled to make sure they aren’t breeding extremists or servant-women. If that isn’t possible then aggressive advertising, after-school programs, TV programs should promote the idea that forced marriage is a form of slavery, that you don’t have to tolerate it, that you must go to the authorities.
2. Education of police, judges and social workers. All too often, victims never go to the authorities because they don’t trust them, with good reason. Authorities will wash their hands and leave it to "cultural differences". The people responsible for the wellbeing of these young people must get it in their heads that this is a serious crime. The system must be made to work swiftly in these cases.
3. Harsh punishment for violators. The fathers AND mothers (sorry, they are complicit) and in the cases where applicable brothers of the victims must be sent to jail AND STAY THERE until the child is returned.
4. Appropriate departments must be set up in destination countries so that victims who escape have safe places to go and legal recourse.
5. When suspicion of an impending kidnapping arises, the passport of the minor should be confiscated. Spain already does this in cases of female circumcision.