Shafilia Ahmed

[thebody]

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

A teacher did try to help her, but the parents found out and punished her further.

Well said Worra.

If someone is scared they are being FORCED to marry someone they don't want to then for them that and the consequences attached to it probably is the worst things that could happen to them.

There are plenty of alternatives without going from the extreme of forced marriage to the extreme of "putting themselves about"

I think lovebunny's comments are horrific. And for what it's worth, I don't think that arranged marriages are the worst things in the worlds, when both parties come to them knowingly and of their own free will. But a girl at school - a CHILD for heaven's sake - coming to you because she is worried about having one isn't going to be undertaking it of her own free will and she isn't going to be entering it knowingly she doesn't have an iota of the understanding about adult life or relationships to enter it knowingly.

If you want to argue that some people in England are excessively promiscuous, that they prize a vacuous notion of free choice over ties of love and duty, I would accept that opinion (and maybe disagree with respect). But to say of a child with regards to her personal integrity (because what is a heavily influenced arranged marriage other than an attack on that - you have to live with the person, probably have to sleep with them) "You know what, better than shagging randoms, catching chlamydia and ending up single at 30"... shame on you.

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 you are abusing a position of authority if you are not prepared to help someone due to your own personal belief system.

Here, here daisies. Well said.

I don't think lovebunny has said that she would dismiss someone who was terrified and imminently facing a forced marriage with "Oh well love, worse things happen at sea". I think she's saying that if someone said "My family wants me to have an arranged marriage and I'm not sure about it - what should I do? What are my options?"

In the first case, call social services and the police. If the second case, discuss the various options with the girl OR boy who is asking and help them draw their own conclusions.

Lovebunny - do you actually have any experience of arranged marraiges? Have you had to have one? You are so misguided (to put it politely) that I actually am lost for words.

That poor girl, the account I read today told of how she grew up with regular beatings and when wad so frightened when they were suffocating her she wet herself - God - that made me feel sick. I can't stop
Thinking about her and how she must have felt - het own parents being the cause of het death. I can't stop thinking about her. May she rest in peace x

i know people with successful arranged marriages, 50... do you?

I know people with successful arranged marriages, their choice. I have also known two girls, yes girls, who have 'disappeared' to hostels due to the prospect of forced marriage.

lovebunny, do you get that this clearly wasn't an attempt to get the DD an arranged marriage? It was plainly a forced marriage.

I am finding it a bit offensive that you keep using this terminology when it's utterly inappropriate and minimizes what has happened.

What lemarch says is spot on.

I've just been catching up with this thread and have noticed Muststudy's comment: "Her murder has nothing to do with religion. It is to do with village culture back in Pakistan. A lot of these uneducared Pakistanis Indiand Bangladeshis are more concerned what their village 'back home' will think of their promiscuous daughter. This is the culture of Hindus, Sikhs, and Hindus from villages and those that are uneducated. The next generation do not hold thus farmer view."
I hope you are right Muststudy, unfortunately I couldn't help thinking of the article I read in the paper today where the sister who reported the murder described how her brother told her that Shafilea "deserved it". I fear he has already been indoctrinated with the view that women have to be controlled so I pity his future wife and daughters .

Oh believe me, there are plenty who still follow this vile way of living. It is about culture but also about taking religion and using it as part of their reasoning.

Arranged marriages are never right. Introductions where there is free will, yes, but 'arrainged' is forced.

I know of a brother and sister who did actually ask their parents for an arranged marriage.

The Mum told me they gave their kids the choice...and then mentioned in the same breath that if they didn't choose the arranged marriage they wouldn't have received a penny from her and her DH (millionaires with around 6 or 7 businesses) and that they would have had nothing to do with their children or grand children.

Yet they still firmly believe they gave their kids a 'choice'....

thebody your comments are utterly ignorant. There is not a religion alive that condones murder, surely you're not that stupid? Her parents were guilty of excessive pride NOT religious extremism.

I think what thebody may be trying to say is that some people use religion as an excuse for their 'reasoning' - this is certainly true as, unfortunately, religion is used and twisted in many ways.

limitedperiodonly sounds like a very normal situation!!

I actually know of a family where the daughter has the power in terms of her cntrolling husband's money because he is from Pakistan and living in 'her' house. She feels like she has dragged him from Earning a tuppence to minimm wage here, so he should be grateful.

She actually was emotionally forced. First girl in the family and she had to set a good example for the rest of the girls. I guess she is resentful.....

lovebunny, no-one thinks or has said that the world has a homogenised culture, or that 'the' western way is always right (I'm not following how there could possibly be such a thing as 'the' western way ... do you realize that could come across as a little generalizing, even stereotyping?).

What people are saying is that you've got one opinion on the best way to deal with a situation like this poor woman was in, and you're sure you're right. Others who've disagreed have tried to explain that they don't understand your attitude as being what's recommended for teachers to do, so it's not as if you're meeting universal agreement from others in the same profession.

I do find it very offensive that you are framing this as a debate about 'different approaches to finding marriage partners' or, previously, about 'arranged marriage'.

Shafilia Ahmed did not die because of 'different attitudes to finding marriage partners': she was murdered after her family tried to force her into marriage. That is not a 'different' but equally valid 'attitude' to finding a marriage partner: that is murder and abuse of a young woman who was desperate.

Well said.

I did notice MNHQ have been on the case with deletions earlier, but I agree, this is pretty awful.

(And I don't mean the deletion of SGM's post there ... obviously ...)

Most of the deletions on this thread have baffled me...especially Stewie's one.

MNHQ seem more than a little flaky these last few months regarding this sort of thing.

We're all adults for goodness sake...I don't see why people have to start throwing their toys out and reporting just because they don't like differing opinions.