Child marriage

[FruityPops]

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

You probably won't get a proper answer Wannabe. I've asked 2 questions on this thread that none like crescentmoon nor hubb have answered (and they were questions about which I would like proper information). They just scream and shout their usual reterick.

This^ Personal attack just because someone hasn't come back and answered your question. Maybe they are busy? Not everyone sits around waiting for you to proclaim your nuggets of wisdom all day.

I haven't seen them scream or shout and you have also been asked questions which you have ignored.

I used to teach in a community where forced marriages weren't unheard of. The problem is, it can be difficult to tell as within the particular cultural group I have worked with, girls don't really have any expectation of choosing their own husbands anyway. Nor do the marriages happen in the UK. Typically the girl is sent 'home' on holiday, to see ageing relatives or to attend a funeral and does not come back until she is married.

In terms of what to look out for it can be very difficult as often they are simply not told they are going back to the home country for a visit and when they do they are often isolated in villages far away from modern communication technology and are given a fait accompali. The only thing we could do was help the girl if she found the tickets and suspected something may be up. (I made many phone calls to Southall Black Sisters during my years working there.) Of course, it is entirely possible, and not infrequent, for the trip to be short notice for legitimate reasons (funerals, ill relatives) or for family holidays. Finding tickets with their name on them was in no way an indication of a forced marriage in the offing.

It's also dangerous to assume it's only young girls who are subject to family coercion to get married. The one case I had most to do with was a colleague who was in her early 20s. Her father controlled her bank account, kept her bank card, and paid for her wedding out of her own salary. She didn't want to get married, strongly objected to it, but gave in in the end because, to her mind, the pain of being ostracized by the family was too much to bear. She agreed to give it a try, but went to the GP first (with me in tow for moral support) to get the depo provera injection first so she wouldn't get pregnant and wouldn't be seen to be taking contraceptives.

Apart from my colleague who managed to divorce her husband after a year, most of the girls who went on holiday and came back married seem to just shrug. They may not have wanted to get married, may not like their husband, but they seemed fatalistic about the whole thing since they never expected to choose their own husband in the first place.

FFS.

I don't mind taking one for the team.

Flapjack, you are a twat.

Fruity, you are also a twat.

I might as well make it count now I suppose, so can I just add that when I say twat, my actual meaning is that you are a pair of goady fuckers; each trying to make some strange point about how bad the general muslim population is because apparently less than 4% of UK imams (no doubt carefully chosen from the very edges of what could be described as the muslim community) have agreed to perform an underage marriage.

I suppose I should also add stupid to the goady twat bit.

The point is, slug, that this is only about Islam in the sense that the Baby P case is about Christianity. There are parts of the world in which women are treated extremely badly. Cultural issues like that are incredibly hard to deal with, because even if you strip away a lot of rather nasty "oh, who are we to judge?" silliness (the point about universal human rights is just that, that they are _universal) you're left with the problem of just what you intend to do about it. As you say, women raised in those communities tend to be very fatalistic or, to be more charitable, accepting, and although you can mutter about "false consciousness" and "patriarchy", it's a hell of a long way from there to solutions.

I don't, absolutely, utterly, don't believe that women born into repressive cultures have fewer rights than me, and I don't, absolutely, utterly, don't believe that it is in any way "cultural imperialism" to assert that rape (and genital mutilation, and denial of education, and the rest) are in any way OK if the oppressors are brown rather than white. However, once we have all condemned oppression and asserted our solidarity and talked about rights and possibly, to show we really care, bought a wristband, we're left with the question of what to do about it. Condemnation is pretty cheap, and there's a lot of it around; solutions are in rather shorter supply.

less than 4% of UK imams (no doubt carefully chosen from the very edges of what could be described as the muslim community) have agreed to perform an underage marriage.

Actually, I doubt they even "agreed". I suspect that the reporters found some fringe imams whose first language isn't English and whose second language isn't either, who are at the weird obscurantist end of proceedings and whose constituency is almost entirely also non-English speaking. They then asked a convoluted question, perhaps even a reterickal question, which if you pried it apart with forensic tweezers could be read by a very skilled user of English to imply that an underage marriage was requested, maybe.

I doubt that the reporters turned up with a fourteen year old girl and said "look, here's her birth certificate, what about a marriage?" Like a lot of this sort of sub-NotW journalism, the question that is asked is a lot vaguer than the story that's then built on the answer.

Crescent, it is enraging to see anti Islam nonsense posted here. We must speak out against the lies spoken by racists.

The BBC is taking forced child marriage of UK girls seriously.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24397026

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24405623

I know this is probably a stupid question but I define rape as someone having sex with you against your will or without your consent.

As in some forced marriages both parties are forced into them and have sex against their will due to pressure from their families have they both been raped?

Thanks Ipanema your post made me smile

Thanks to all the other posters who have responded to Flap as well, it has become quite entertaining since I signed off for a break!

Flap, you haven't responded to a question or two yourself. And what do you mean by a. Shouty and b. My usual rhetoric, as I rarely post on here, especially about Islam.

So are we. No one is saying it isn't wrong, or doesn't happen. We are questioning your OP which seems to be assuming all Muslims are involved in it, i.e. that it is widespread and broadly accepted by British Muslims.

slug, it looks as if your experiences echo mine quite closely.
I'm also sure that had we been working in a different culture with a practice of arranged marriage seen as the norm, much of what you posted would still be valid.
And I also agree with Friday16 :
'I don't, absolutely, utterly, don't believe that women born into repressive cultures have fewer rights than me, and I don't, absolutely, utterly, don't believe that it is in any way "cultural imperialism" to assert that rape (and genital mutilation, and denial of education, and the rest) are in any way OK if the oppressors are brown rather than white.'

To me the answer lies largely with education, so that the passive acceptance of unequality ends, and that girls are given alternative, real options for their futures.

By the way...a question about which you would like proper info?

Dunno what you might be on about, but may be you aren't in the right place asking the right people anyway, crescent and I have already stated we don't have any experience or knowledge of forced underage marriage etc, again why is it up to us innocent muzzie bystanders to combat this stuff and also fill the gaps in your ignorance.

Gaps in your knowledge*

This is what ITV News has to say about it:

www.itv.com/news/2013-10-06/uk-imams-agree-to-perform-underage-marriages/

There is a programme on ITV about it on Wednesday night at 10.35pm.

hubb I'm really sorry if my question offended I didn't mean for it to be about religion I just thought someone on this thread would know more about law then me

Oh dear a reasoned number of different opinions boils down to bog standard mumsnet-royalty newbie bashing. Yawn.

This is a serious issue and I worry there isn't the breadth of intelligence here to debate it. Radio 4 did a much better job without resorting to personal attacks and race card waving.

Race card waving? Ha!

and?

I know a man who knows another man work for itv and can confirm that a lot of what goes on the telly box, is, in fact, totally made up

But that's irrelevant.

It's your strange theory that somehow the law breaking activities of some are the collective responsibility of all muslims.

I. Just. Don't. Geddit.

Nice - the people who have been insulting me are mumsnet-royalty? Is this site not really worth bothering with?

X post.

that's to Fruity.

Obv's.

I'm not Newbie bashing. I'm racist bashing.