Shafilia Ahmed

[thebody]

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

missannersley
my posts do not conflict with the considerable amount of child protection training i have received.
i think you might be assuming that taking other world views into account, and not being against arranged marriage in principle, equate with sending a terrified girl back to parents who will put her into a position where she will drink bleach.
that is not the case.

Thank you hackmum.

mamamumra I think Lovebunny makes a good point about being single is not always the best. An arranged marriage of today in the majority of south asian households is where the son/daughter is shown a few nice girls/boys from nice families. It is then up to the child whether he/she wants to pursue. Girls are shown guys after Masters type age which is 24-25. The girls would have had a fun single life by then. They are re-introduced to guys when they hit 26 as parents get desperate and worried about the 30!! My Pakistani friends who are 30+ are now very much in favour of meeting guys in this way. They realise the single life is not fun and they want to meet a guy from a respectable family rather than be single at 35.

It is a valid point!!!!!!!!!! And I'm certain most cuktures would empathise with wanting to be introduced to someone.

If these girls run away they have no family, at 16 if she has no a levels and is homeless.................?!

I am in no "gang" on MN lovebunny and your post terrifies me.

I'm so, so, so, so sorry that our politically correct, wishy washy liberal authorities didn't look out for you. That would be the politically correct, wishy washy liberal SWs and teachers and nurses who have dedicated their lives to try to help people and who take the abuse and threats and crap off people all the time.

Just because we don't get it right all the time, doesn't mean you would do a better job. It also doesn't mean that we don't hate violence and abuse. In fact, why do you think we work in Social Services in the first place? It's all so easy to solve from behind a copy of the Daily Mail.

But lovebunny, you claim a pupil came to you with concerns about marriage and you think putting yourself about all over town while you look for a life partner might be worse?!?

Well it's ok for you to take that blase and old fashioned attitude towards other people's relationships, because it's not your life that could well end up being ruined by marrying someone you have concerns about as a school child.

If indeed you were approached by a pupil, I hope she found a less old fashioned and unhelpful attitude in another member of staff.

there are lots of things worse than arranged marriage. and pupils with concerns about marriage aren't necessarily concerned about the 'arranged' part.

i have been approached by many pupils about many issues, and by former pupils. they do that because they know they can trust, talk freely and receive a response which will be exploratory, not fixed in any particular perspective.

I think one of the problems historically in this country is that violence against women and girls isn't taken very seriously by the police.

The Guardian ran an article recently on the murder rate in England and Wales, which is at its lowest for years (www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jul/19/falling-murder-rate-domestic-violence?intcmp=239). There were fewer than 600 murders last year, and it said that part of the reason for this is that in recent years the police have treated domestic violence seriously. Most murders, after all, are "domestics": men killing their wives, parents killing their children. For a long time the police just ignored complaints of domestic violence - in the 70s, a man beating his wife was regarded as comic material.

What the police have to do now is take violence in the family seriously, wherever it happens, and however obstructive other family members are being.

I missed your last post hackmum. I agree that joined up thinking is better. I worked in a joint health and SS team and that really is great. I have had the pleasure of working with some great Police Officers and some total twunts but more great ones. The more integrated we get the better. And that includes working with religious leaders and community leaders as well. I have had some really good successes with helpful Imams (for example telling sick/elderly people to eat during Ramadan) when clients might not listen to me.

I have also had the frustration of trying to get the person whose responsibility it is to take responsibility (for example when we were sure it was a health issue but the health worker won' take the case). I can't keep the case because it is not my area of expertise but can't pass it on. The stress and worry is awful. Someone has to carry the can but with so many cases open and juggling work load some people slip through the cracks.

I think people think that SWs have one 'bad' case like this poor girl and ignore it. That is not the case. You might have a few fucking loads of really scary cases all at once, any one of which might end with a death or serious abuse or neglect. You might be juggling several suspected abuse cases, several neglect, some other worries. Imagine doing that day after day. Knowing you might come to work and find that someone you worked with had died.

Muststudy I can honestly say hand on heart that none of the young Asian girls I know from traditional families (and there are too many to count) ever experience a 'fun single life' really...and certainly not one that introduces them to men.

They are almost always chaperoned everywhere by their brothers or fathers when going out and are very rarely allowed out after dark without a chaperone.

That's the experience I have from looking around me anyway.

Virginity is to be protected at all times when it comes to daughters.

hackmum x-posted again!

I read another article that said that the figures that say that domestic violence is falling are flawed because they include murders where the victim is known to the person who kills them. This could include drugs dealers or gangs because people are known to each other. This means that the 'domestic violence' figures could fall because they are cracking down on drug violence not supporting women. I hope the person who linked the article on another thread can do so again because I don't have it.

And takibg money from children is normal in these cultures. Tge girl should just go to school and come hone to study/cook/clean. Why would she neeed money?!?! muststudy I agree with you and don't see what the problem is with your use of 'these cultures'.

It's spot-on and not perjorative or racist. It echoes what garlicnut said about reverse racisim being equally damaging.

My friend is 33 and Hindu and has just emerged from an arranged marriage which was very unhappy.

She said her relations also thought 'why would she need money?'. She wasn't even allowed money to buy a sandwich at lunchtime. They aren't horrible. They think it's a waste when you can take in leftovers. They don't understand why she might want to spend an hour with her friends in a cafe. To their mind, whatever she earned was for the family.

She married at 22 and it wasn't an entirely rational and free decision. She did it because she thought she'd have more freedom and status as a married woman than as a single daughter to be watched and controlled by her parents, brother and wider family.

She said she 'chose' by going out with him on chaperoned dates with her cousins and thought: 'he seems all right.' How can anyone say that's good even if they don't add the the disgusting: "Putting yourself about all over town while you look for a life partner"?

She was just as trapped. He controlled all the money. She would money-launder by asking him for money to buy clothes and then get a refund or re-sell things so she had her own cash. This is someone who earned a salary.

He was violent and the shocking thing is she still says it wasn't that bad because he used to 'just' slap and push her. Presumably she knew that other men from their culture did worse things.

She doesn't think him coercing her into sex by withholding money, even for their sons' clothes was rape. Again, because she knows other men hit their wives to make them submit to sex, it doesn't seem that bad in comparision.

When she'd had enough and decided to get a divorce her aunts told her she was selfish 'you've had your life. Think of your children' is what one said. This is someone of 33.

Her sisters backed her. Their mum came round in the end. Her dad is dead but they're pretty sure he would have supported her in the end too.

Her brother backed her husband. Presumably to stop his own wife getting ideas.

On the surface she was happy, well-groomed, had a nice car and house. lovely kids and someone who seemed a fun and loving husband. I had no idea how miserable she was inside.

OP your original and subsequent posts dont make much sense maybe start the thread again

Glad to see that vicious thug and his accomplice have been locked up.

MrsT: "You might be juggling several suspected abuse cases, several neglect, some other worries. Imagine doing that day after day."

I can't, to be honest. It terrifies me. One of the things I don't understand is that social workers seem to work singly rather than in pairs - is that right? (I might be wrong.) In which case, a social worker investigating a case of abuse or neglect where there is a violent family member might understandably feel relieved when the client isn't in or refuses to see her, and then rather than pursue the case, lets it go. I might be wrong, of course. It just seems an odd setup where, say, a young woman in her 20s is sent alone and unprotected to deal with these potentially violent families.

Also - "This means that the 'domestic violence' figures could fall because they are cracking down on drug violence not supporting women."

You could be right - I don't know enough about it. But I think one of the Guardian articles about this said that reported incidents (or possibly convictions, not sure) of domestic violence had actually risen, and this was as a result of women being more likely to go to the police. I think the interesting thing is that the murder rate overall has fallen dramatically and as most murders are domestic ones, there is clearly something going on. It could be of course that women now find it easier to walk away from an abusive relationship than they once did because they have more economic independence and more sources of support.

"Pendeen"

it should be these vicious thugs.

Yes: these vicious thugs. She wasn't an accomplice: she was fully complicit and the sentence reflected that.

Sorry, I took accomplice to mean an accessory to not an abettor.

I don't want to digress but people keep saying 'arranged marriage' when they are referring to a forced marriage, and it's been corrected once but it's still being repeated.

An 'arranged marriage' can refer to a very wide range of situations, I know, but it's wrong to confused it with forced marriage. I know women who, as far as they/their parents are concerned, had 'arranged' marriages in that their parents made formal overtures to the parents of their now-spouses, but the couples had known each other for a long time before this happened. I think that's quite common in some communities? Obviously at the other extreme, an arranged marriage could be easily confused with a forced marriage. But calling what Ahmed was struggling to get away from an 'arranged marriage' is wrong: it clearly was forced.

Poor woman. I really, really hope other women do not have to go through this.

Yes LRD, I had an arranged marriage. I didn't know DH before being introduced to him, it was completely 100% arranged but I could have said no to it at any point. Arranged marriage is not just another word for forced marriage.

^WorraLiberty: But lovebunny, you claim a pupil came to you with concerns about marriage and you think putting yourself about all over town while you look for a life partner might be worse?!?

Well it's ok for you to take that blase and old fashioned attitude towards other people's relationships, because it's not your life that could well end up being ruined by marrying someone you have concerns about as a school child.

If indeed you were approached by a pupil, I hope she found a less old fashioned and unhelpful attitude in another member of staff.^

i have one point of view about promiscuity. you have another. so what? why does it upset you so much? and concerns about marriage don't have to be concerns about the person!

someone said i was only referring to old-fashioned south asian families. i'm not referring to south-asian families as a group, at all, i don't think.

hackmum we did work alone a lot of the time. I also worked with others (maybe SW, maybe psychologist, maybe other health professional), depending on the case. Obviously, that stretches an already overstretched system even more. There aren't enough SW when they work alone, never mind in pairs. Also, it is more intimidating for the person concerned. In a good team, you will have regular and very good supervision. I did and this helps people 'carry' cases. It also means there are more eyes on the files and the reports. I think that maybe this is one of the places that falls down in the cases that make the papers.

I don't know about being relieved when people won't engage. I can be a bit of a wimp but walked into situations that were probably very dangerous because I had to. I have to say that most people are very scared of SWs and therefore quite careful around them. I know that train guards and parking attendants suffer more abuse than I did. Of course, if I knew the situation was dangerous (previous threats for example) I would take precautions. As I said before though, SWs aren't psychic. I often read things about cases in the papers and wonder how people think that nurses, teachers and SWs are expected to know exactly what is happening. We talk to everyone involved and a chunk are lying or mis-remembering, another chunk are scared, another chunk don't know anything. Then add MH, drug/alcohol, prior abuse, LDs.

Fortunately I no longer work for SS and can manage my lovely small case load with a non-profit easily, knowing my arse is not on the line, I report when I need to and bless the poor SW that has to actually deal with it legally.

Lovebunny, you seem to have missed the similarity between your dismissal of a normal British single life as "putting yourself about all over town" and some other posters' conflation of arranged marriages (with real choice) and forced marriages.

That doesn't surprise me, though, because you do the same thing again when you refer to "concerns about marriage" knowing full well that this conversation is about forced marriage in particular.

You seem remarkably determined to gloss over the very real abuses that are being perpetrated on British girls, now, by their own families, and to cover them with sweeping claims of cultural misunderstanding. That's exactly what allows these abuses to continue and enables the 'reverse racism' which leaves vulnerable young women unprotected.

I'm surprised that you're so comfortable with the abuse of young women under your supervision.

i have one point of view about promiscuity. you have another. so what? why does it upset you so much? and concerns about marriage don't have to be concerns about the person!

Because if a pupil decides to turn to someone in authority (ie..you if you're a teacher) with their concern about their possible marriage, to then dismiss their concern as 'not the worst thing that can happen'...because you have a problem with unmarried people putting themselves about all over town while they look for a life partner well that makes me sad to be honest.

It can take a long time to pluck up the courage to confide in a teacher and I would have hoped they'd get a less dismissive response.

But as I say, hopefully they turned to someone else with their concern.