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Child marriage

357 replies

FruityPops · 07/10/2013 12:20

Why are so many imams in the UK willing to force fourteen year old girls to marry against their wishes? Don't ordinary muslims know what's going on?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2447720/Clerics-18-mosques-caught-agreeing-marry-girls-14-Four-imams-investigated-undercover-operation.html

OP posts:
FruityPops · 08/10/2013 11:34

Some muslims might be happy for their child to marry a non-muslim, and others might threaten them with death.

It's the same as when someone wants to convert to another religion. There is not one standard response to any given situation.

OP posts:
EldritchCleavage · 08/10/2013 11:48

There is not one standard response to any given situation

Well quite.

handcream · 08/10/2013 11:56

Its a horrible horrible practise. It should be stamped out but wont be until its brought out into the open.

Some are claiming they dont know anything about it (really!), some are trying to divert back to the Catholic Church and their priests.

But this thread is talking about 'child marriages'. Are we trying to justify by saying that other people do other horrible things therefore its Ok for us to do this.....

crescentmoon · 08/10/2013 11:58

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

fuzzywuzzy · 08/10/2013 11:59

handcream I know as much about it as anyone does from having read about it.

It does not happen in my community.

crescentmoon · 08/10/2013 12:01

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

EldritchCleavage · 08/10/2013 12:04

Oh, I think we all know the answer to that, crescent.

YouTheCat · 08/10/2013 12:04

Handcream, are you a Christian? Do you accept responsibility for anything the Catholic church might have done wrong in the last 30years?

friday16 · 08/10/2013 12:10

It does not happen in my community.

The reason you're being asked is because those asking you are flat out bigots, guilty of essentialising Islam.

When Amanda Hutton was convicted of the manslaughter of her child last week, the response on MN was not "Why don't white people know more about this?" Long before Hutton is viewed as "white", she's viewed as "an alcoholic", "a DV victim", "having PND" or, indeed, "a killer of children". No-one attempts to argue that we can learn from her case anything about what it is to be a white woman today, and no-one starts implying some sort of Test Act which says that there is one true response to the story, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a secret abuser. Oh, OK, the last: people who attempt to contextualise it will always clash with people who just see it has unmediated evil, but I don't think that each side in that conflict thinks the other has a chamber of horrors in their bedroom.

But when there's a story about Muslim family dynamics, it's immediately about Muslims. The most extreme cases (Shafelia Ahmed, say) are used as sticks to beat the entire Muslim community (or, more to the point, all the disparate Muslim communities, plural) as though every Muslim mother secretly wants to marry her child off in Pakistan or kill her in the process. Rather than it being seen as a case as far off the scale as the Amanda Hutton case, it's seen as somehow a metaphor, or something more concrete, for "how Muslims live today".

There are, of course, people who are nominally Muslim who also abuse their children. That's true in every community. Fred West had neighbours and friends, too. The gross racist libel comes when in the aftermath of accounts of abuse, the implication is made that "they" are all up to it really, and that the utterly abhorrent attitudes towards children, women or whatever the topic is are widely shared and implemented amongst "them".

Sure, as Crescentmoon outlines, lots of people would like their children and their grandchildren to follow their values. But to take from that the idea that they would enforce those values through abuse is crazy. There are, of course, people who do enforce them, who are crazy. But they are no more common, no more accepted and no more excused amongst the Muslim community than anywhere else.

SunshineSuperNova · 08/10/2013 12:36

What a surprise, another Muslim bashing thread.

None of the Muslims I know were forced into marriage. One lovely colleague stopped talking about her husband because ignoramuses assumed she'd been forced to marry him.

OP, you've been told a lot of times that forced marriage (and other child abuse issues) are not exclusive to Muslim communities. I do not believe that you care, because you're all about Muslim bashing.

handcream · 08/10/2013 12:41

I am not anything at all, but it does seem that if anything is brought up like this people claim they dont know anything about it, start pointing fingers at other religions or claim it is racist.

Child marriage is completely unacceptable regardless of who you are. It just so happens it's an issue with some Muslims.

Just like the abuse in the Catholic Church where people pretended that its wasnt going on. Equally as disgusting.

If you really dont think these issues are going on, sex workers being brought in by Eastern European gangs, abuse by priests within the Catholic Church then we have no hope in fixing these issues

handcream · 08/10/2013 12:43

Its NOT Muslim bashing tbh. Its bashing CHILD MARRIAGES. Just because you dont know someone who has been forced into it doesnt mean it isnt going on!

YouTheCat · 08/10/2013 12:49

But it isn't a Muslim issue. It's a cultural issue. Child marriages and forced marriages span quite a few different religions. It isn't a massive issue in Britain. It is an issue around the world.

Would you tar all Christians by the actions of the Westboro Baptist church because they are Christians? So why tar all Muslims because this might have happened in a very few extreme cases?

No one has said child marriages are a good thing. Have you even RTF?

friday16 · 08/10/2013 12:50

Child marriage is completely unacceptable regardless of who you are. It just so happens it's an issue with some Muslims.

In which case, you'll be able to produce a case that's happened. All we need is one. Not "someone said they'd do it when asked by a journalist", but a real case involving real people, happening in this country.

Actually, a real case involving a British Muslim even happening overseas would be an interesting data point.

So far, the case that has been brought up by name, that of Karma Nirvana founder Jasvinder Sanghera and her sister, involves a Sikh family. Not Muslim at all. Why aren't you spitting equal venom against the Sikh community?

fuzzywuzzy · 08/10/2013 12:53

Child marriages do not happen in my community, I'd have noticed if my friends disappeared.

Child marriages are not a Muslim crime, it's rife in India amongst the Hindu community out in the rural villages, the Indian government has attempted to address it (half heartedly), I would suggest by what I have read, it is rife in poor rural third world countries.

EldritchCleavage · 08/10/2013 12:54

Jasvinder Sanghera wasn't married off underage though, was she?
So no case at all.

friday16 · 08/10/2013 13:14

An example of a case of arguably forced marriage is Bedfordshire Police Constabulary v RU & Anor [2013] EWHC 2350 (Fam). The case is something of a car crash, with problems of exactly who has standing to plead what, but you can't help but think that the sixteen year old girl at the centre of the case is still in an appalling position.

However, the girl in question was 16 throughout (born October 1996). It's clearly a case of at least arguably forced marriage, and it's fairly obvious that the parents were intending, at least, to transport her to Pakistan and have her married there. You would have to question, pace crescentmoon and others, quite what the 500 attendees at the ceremony thought they were attending. But she was 16. There was a prohibited steps order in place, which is why the police attempted to have the ceremony ruled in contempt (the outcome of the case is deeply unsatisfactory). But this is not a case of child marriage per se, and although it's deeply troubling, it's noticeable that the parents waited until the girl was sixteen before proceeding. The problem here is not sketchy imams, etc, it's poorly drafted legislation on prohibited steps orders.

friday16 · 08/10/2013 13:15

Jasvinder Sanghera wasn't married off underage though, was she?
So no case at all.

True dat.

fuzzywuzzy · 08/10/2013 13:20

Friday, the thing is, if the girl is not willing only the close family members will know about it, the family aren't going to advertise it.

When I got married there were 1,000 guests, I didn't know any it was in India, apparently we were all related Hmm.

In this case unless the girl is screaming for help in public (which I doubt she would), there's no way of the guests knowing this is not a happy occasion.

Perhaps jail for a minimum term for all members of the family colluding in the coercion might be a more successful deterrent?

BlingBang · 08/10/2013 17:00

Surely there is some form of coercion if like my friend, she was told whom she would be marrying from the age of 8. She was excited and went to Pakistan willingly at 17. Her mother left her to get on with it on her wedding night when she asked her not to leave her.

She wasn't a child and wasn't 'forced' (though wedding night seems dodgy'. But I'd say there is a lot of coercion and abuse here. Strangely, though now divorced she wants her child to marry a family member she approves.

handcream · 08/10/2013 17:07

It extremely difficult to go against your family wishes at such a young age. If your family are looking for an arranged marriage for you or that you be married to someone double your age who do you flag this to if you dont want to do it.

Probably no one.

If culturally your family for generations have had child marriages/arranged marriages at 11 are you really going to fight it.

friday16 · 08/10/2013 17:09

Surely there is some form of coercion if like my friend, she was told

There is. And we can all see that a sixteen year old (or, indeed, a twenty year old) in that sort of situation is probably neither a free agent nor giving informed consent. But drafting legislation to deal with it is incredibly hard.

There comes a point where you have to accept that people are capable of giving consent on their own behalf. If a marriage is not a sham contracted for reasons of immigration status, which is a different issue, then it's best to assume that it's being freely entered into unless there is massive, massive evidence to the contrary. Getting courts involved in "is this wedding a good idea?" judgements risks immense unintended consequences.

handcream · 08/10/2013 17:14

Friday is correct. Even if it is left to 16 is it really OK to not question the girl who is been taken to another country to get married to a man double her age whom she has never met.

Maybe we arent allow to 'judge'. It doesnt sit well with me tbh but I do understand how difficult it is to legislate.

78bunion · 08/10/2013 17:18

First of all we need to equalise the law. C of E, Jewish, Catholic weddings are one thing - state and religious marriage all in one. Muslim marriages are not. This means some women think they are married with all the protection English law gives and instead find they are just religiously married so on divorce have fewer rights to property etc. If we made Muslim and Christian marriages treated equally under English law that would be a very good start.

TheGirlFromIpanema · 08/10/2013 17:25

handcream the OP on this thread is

Why are so many imams in the UK willing to force fourteen year old girls to marry against their wishes? Don't ordinary muslims know what's going on?

If you cannot see this is muslim bashing (sic) then there is no hope of the reasoned debate you purport to wanting.

Did you read the thread before posting?

I agree that any type of forced marriage is absolutely abhorrent, but beginning a debate with the type of inflammatory language demonstrated by the OP and others of her ilk is hateful and nasty, plain and simple.

Friday I doff my cap to you. That's some serious staying power you have got there Grin

The trouble is that it is difficult to argue with bigoted idiots - they will wear you down and beat you with experience wink]