Shafilia Ahmed

[thebody]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!' !!!!!!!!!'nnnnnnn. Why r u blocking posts

People like her parents use religion to control their kids. No religion actually wants you to kill your child.
That said I actually have no idea what the OP is going on about.

If they were non religious murderers would it have been quicker?
Probably not..the justice system is slow..they have to be sure to get the facts straight or face the guilty going free!

I got the impression OP is of the same ethnic background and feels the authorities were reluctant to intervene, despite Shafila's begging them for help. This has happened before and I remember reading the whole shameful story as it slowly emerged. it does happen. Like it or not. Reverse racism is just as lethal as the more overt kind.

I also felt OP has a daughter and is enraged by what this religion consider acceptable treatment of young women.

I may be wrong ... apols for speaking on your behalf, thebody, but I think you have a point. It makes me angry too, and I'm unconnected with the issue.

Are there two elephants? The other one is where teachers, social workers, community counsellors, etc, fail to "interfere" in "cultural traditions" even when those traditions include the torture, murder and genital mutilation of girls.

How fucking dare you say I'm defending murder.

You of the incoherent rant are having trouble understanding my clear and well articulated post?

In the simplest of terms: my post is defending religions which are peaceful from ill-informed people like you.

It has long been evident that the police were suspicious of her parents, however as in any reasonable justice system there does need to be supporting evidence. As the only witnesses were previously unwilling to come forward and there seemed to be a lack of physical evidence, there was not enough to charge or prosecute. It has been acknowledged in every report that the testimony of their other daughter was the game changer. The time it took was not religion related.

Nobody has been defending murder. It sounds like a racist rant to me.

What evidence is there that teachers, social workers etc could have prevented this girl's death?

... actually the torture happens to boys as well (devil children). The mutilation and murder is mostly girls. I left out being married to older men who shag them to death, too. Not all traditions are good; these are illegal. Teachers should intervene.

And exactly how should teachers intervene? What evidence is there that they have the knowledge of the family's circumstances or the power to do so?

How would this girl's teachers have prevented her death?

I don't know about this case. I know about another one where a girl was telling her teachers that her parents were going to kill her if she didn't marry as instructed. She also contacted the police - ran into the police station sobbing, iirc, and terrified. Teachers did nothing beyond log her concerns. Police returned her to parents. Parents killed her.

Maybe flag up any concerns they have sooty?

If they're encouraged to say them out loud, it might overcome the should I/shouldn't I debate that must go on in peoples heads all the time.

And teachers are the inevitable person given this job, difficult, but essential.

Ummm..am I the only one confused by op?

YY, Agent: encouraged to say them out loud.

Flagging up concerns - yes - agreed.

However the implication from some posters is that her teachers are at fault for her death and could have prevented it.

They're an easy target because they have access to so many children sooty, so understandable.

But I don't think teachers should feel a personal collective blame, or think society blames them for all the ills in the world, but they are important 'eyes' on what can be very private/behind closed doors situations, and it'd be a disservice to all the thousands of children who need that outside contact if full use wasn't made of their unique situation.

When these services are aware of such problems they do intervene. Witch children & honour killings have received media attention but always there are people from social services, schools and the police working towards preventing them. There specific teams for dealing with honour killings or potential honour killings.

However if a problem is not identified it is difficult to know anything needs to be done. This girl was intelligent and alerted the relevant authorities to her fears surrounding her parents. Her greatest fear was they would take her to Pakistan and marry her off, she expressed no fear they were going to kill her. She knew to tell people what was going on, they were helping her to be housed etc it was not considered a threat that her parents would kill her, so how would anyone know to act against that.

It similar to domestic violence, if nobody knows about it or whats fully going on then its difficult to intervene. You wouldn't say a woman's friends or her doctor had failed her if she mentioned her husband could be slightly controlling but he was seriously physically abusing her which led to her murder.

Some people have been failed by certain services (I'm not a massive fan myself) but not in this case. Ultimately it is still her parents who failed her, not her teachers and not her religion.

Garlic - sadly there have been several cases featuring women from a variety of backgrounds, where they have gone to the police fearing for their lives and haven't been believed and have then been murdered.

For anyone interested in combating Honor-based violence, Southall Black Sisters is an excellent resource.

I take your point, Goth, but it doesn't really make it any less dreadful :(

I've read up on Shafilea Ahmed now. She was receiving ongoing treatment for burns sustained to her throat when she drank bleach in response to her parents' reactions to her rejecting a proposed husband. So I would have thought it was clear enough that she was literally terrified to death of them.

"Shafilea ran away multiple times and eventually registered as being homeless. She admitted her parents beat her, stole money from her bank account and would likely force her into an arranged marriage.

After months of being homeless, Shafilea returned home, and the family left for a holiday in Pakistan in February, 2003. During this trip, Shafilea?s parents introduced her to a potential husband. While in Pakistan, Shafilea drank bleach and seriously damaged her throat. Her parents claimed this cry for help was simply an accident. (They said she thought it was pop - surely nobody believed this?) Once she was back in Warrington, Shafilea only left the house for medical treatment until she started her A-Levels at college in September."

No cause for concern there, then.

I think her sister is amazing. It must have been such a difficult choice to make, considering the culture and what happened to her sister, and I hope she is being well looked after.

Blaming religion is just a distraction from the real issues. But its great that police have actually told people to get in touch if they are facing an unwanted arranged marriage. I hope the outcome of this case makes a difference.

And I wish health and happiness to Shafila's siblings.

I think religion does have a role to play in this murder. A system of belief which place huge value on filial obedience and on women's chastity creates a context in which violent and controlling behaviour towards daughters finds justification and can thrive.

Since then a lot of work has been done to try to prevent things like that happening and to increase awareness of it. Without defending actions in any way I can't imagine it is a situation teachers in Warrington experience a lot which would understandably make knowing how to respond much harder than those who work in areas where things such as forced marriages are more likely to happen.

Hopefully the new laws together with things like this case and her sister being brave enough to speak out against her family will help other young girls escape similar situations in future.

Culture plays a much bigger role than religion. If it was the religion there would be many many more instances of this than there are.

Ostracision is much more likely than honour killing.

Should have specified that it's much more likely within the families I know and in my lical area. I don't have figures to back this up.

Don't really understand op's point...looks like a hamster on E was let loose on the keyboard, BUT:

This was NOT a religious murder. It was a CULTURAL one. Religion had nothing to do with this, and I bet you her parents didn't know anything about Islam and based all their views in what their culture has taught them.

Cultural practise is more dangerous than religious.

Shafiliea's parents are nothing but evil murderers.

i am glad that the court has been able to reach a conclusion. i am very sorry that shafilea ahmed had the experiences she had in her life, and that her death was horrific and at the hands of her own parents.

as has been stated many times here, religions nowadays do not tell people to kill their children.

culture isn't entirely negative. its how we transmit our values to future generations. and values are our survival modes - they help us relate to each other.

i am not against arranged or introduced marriage. i am not against children obeying their parents. i am against the cheap and nasty culture we have allowed to develop in the uk, with the glorification of celebrities and devaluation of human sexuality so that the assumption is that everyone will have sex with everyone else. i can understand that parents are afraid - especially if they don't know families in the indigenous population whose children do not behave like that, who are able to withstand the pressure of the wider community and media hype.

there is nothing wrong with wanting your family to be 'respectable'. it used to be something everyone would aim for. duty and honour are part of that. a hundred years ago in the uk only the aristocracy and criminals were free not to care about respectability.

if a pupil came to me with concerns about marriage (which has happened) i would not immediately conclude that this was the worst thing that could happen to her. being rejected by your family might be worse. putting yourself about all over town while you look for a life partner might be worse. spending your life alone might be worse. the situation needs thinking through, without making an assumption that it will, in every case, be wrong. teachers and schools need strategies in place to address these issues without hysteria.

i don't think the judge in the s a case had any right to tell parents their values were those of 'rural pakistan'. how long has he lived there? has he lived in every rural area of pakistan? i think the judge's comment (if accurately reported on television news) was racist and likely to encourage people to think negatively of people of pakistani origin.

rushing to see all arranged marriages as forced marriages might deprive a lot of young women of potentially good husbands and happy families. killing your children is unacceptable and the sentence passed on these parents demonstrates that. but the s a case doesn't make all asian, or all Muslim parents into potential killers, nor does it make arranged marriage always a bad thing. so-called 'love marriages' sometimes lead to unpleasant, even horrific, domestic situations, and many end in divorce.