Fears over forced marriages

A TERRIFIED 13-year-old girl mumbles some words in a foreign language and she becomes property of her new husband.

She is left alone with the stranger, who is almost 20 years older than her, in his isolated village in Pakistan. He rapes her.

She begs her mother for help, but the only words of advice she gets are 'don't make a scene'. In desperation the teenager tries to kill herself.

This is the true story of Moss Side councillor Sameem Ali we revealed earlier this month.

After giving birth at 14, she was allowed to come home to Britain to raise her baby. But after being mentally and physically abused for years by her family, she began to fear for her young son and ran away to start a new life in Manchester.

It is a story that new figures show is disturbingly common in our city.

Women in Manchester are being forced into marriages they do not want at an estimated rate of six a month and outreach workers suspect the true figure is even higher.

Central Manchester Women's Aid , which is staffed by two part time workers, say they have dealt with 75 women seeking help to escape a forced marriage since April last year.

Nationwide, the government's Forced Marriage Unit says it deals with about 300 cases a year, around a third of whom are children - some, like Sameem, as young as 13.

Iceburg

But Sandhyah Sharma, from Central Manchester Women's Aid, says that if two part time women in Manchester see more than 100 women a year, as they did the previous year, then the national figures must be the 'tip of the iceberg'.

"It's a massive problem and it's not just a South Asian community problem," she says. "We see women from the Irish traveller community, Polish, Spanish, African women. Basically pick a country, any country where there is a tradition of arrangements or different ways of marriage then you will find issues around forced marriage."

MPs also recognise that forced marriages, like instances of domestic violence, are vastly under reported.

A House of Commons select committee investigating forced marriage found that in 15 areas across the country 2,089 children were missing from school.

The figures were disclosed amid growing concern the pupils - mainly from ethnic minorities - were being forced into marriages abroad against their will.

Politicians have been debating whether or not to criminalise forced marriage for years.

Currently the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act , which was passed in Parliament last year, allows courts to make orders to protect the victim or the potential victim of a forced marriage and help remove them from that situation.

While aspects of the practice, like kidnap and rape, are illegal, forced marriage itself is still not against the law. But Mrs Ali, now 38, thinks that criminalising forced marriage would dissuade young people from reporting it at all.

"Imagine the situation where a 15-year-old knows they are going to be forced into a marriage and they ring the relevant number and police get involved. If the police then say, `OK, you're being forced into a marriage, that's a criminal act, we're going to arrest your parents' - which young girl or young boy is going to put their parents through that at that age?"

Instead, she thinks that the avenues of help, like the Forced Marriage Unit should be better publicised in schools and airports to raise awareness.

"The victims don't know what help is out there or even if anyone can help them," she says. "I only found out about the Forced Marriage Unit two years ago, and I've been in that situation.

"It's still happening today and I think 25 years later, a quarter of a century, it's still the same. My son is 24 years old now and it's been shoved under the carpet for all these years."

Maybe they are afraid that if they dont act... their son/daughter may marry someone who they dont approve of..... or even worse someone of a different religion.

I think such people are the lowest of the low. Comeon thats you're son or daughter. Someone you're "supposed" to care about.

You know what? People like this are sooo low; id put a hit out on them. Ive got literally golden bullets with their names on them.

Comeon whose with me?

Allahuakbar wrote:

Maybe they are afraid that if they dont act... their son/daughter may marry someone who they dont approve of..... or even worse someone of a different religion.

How many 13 year olds do you know that do that?

It doesnt matter how good the reasons are, you just cant justify by firstly forcing someone to marry against their will and secondly marrying a 13 yr old CHILD to a man is almost 33! Its just madness.

I dont think violence is the solution Seraphim these ppl need educating.

orite calm down, i werent having a go, it was just a question. Maybe i misunderstood/forgot what you wrote while i was typing, my bad.

8-year-old girl asks for divorce in court

You got some really sick twisted ppl in this world. Look at her, she is just a baby.