Forced marriages in Britain may be higher than originally thought

54 thoughts on Forced marriages in Britain may be higher than originally thought

1. But the government argues that criminalising forced marriage would only drive it underground.

   Forced marriage is an evil enough thing in and of itself that it should be illegal even if it causes it to be driven underground and less reported. At least one could do something to help those cases where it is uncovered if it is illegal. Are there really no laws against forced marriage in Britain? Presumably most of the actual marriages are taking place in other countries. Pakistan was mentioned, for example. How are these children being taken out of the country without anyone noticing?

2. Drive it further underground than what? It seems that girls are already being pulled out of school with no explanation and shipped out of the country. Wouldn’t at least being able to do something about it if girls did report or ask for protection be better than just kind of shuffling around and talking about how horrible it is?

3. I presume because parents are allowed to take their children out of the country. They are not allowed (I would presume) to keep them in Britain out of school, but if they pull them out of school and “move” to a foreign country, it seems to me difficult to come up with a crime that’s been committed in Britain. I think criminalizing it would most likely mean some sort of Mann Act type “transporting a minor accross national boundaries for an illicit purpose (rape/forced marriage).”

4. this makes me so incredibly sad on so many levels. For the girls involved, my heart breaks- they might have thought erroneously that in their adopted country, they had found a measure of safety and some sort of equality. I don’t know the answer but making “allowances” for cultural and ethnic (under the guise of religious freedom) differences is NOT the answer. Some things are just WRONG and each individual in a free society should have the EXACT same rights as every OTHER citizen – religion and colour be damned!. NO to sharia law or any other law that deviates from the law of the land. NO to practices that treat one sex as less than. NO to cultures that see it acceptable to marry off children!

   and it happens everywhere.

   My daughter has a friend to whom that happened. Spirited off to Pakistan right after graduating high school with a FULL scholarship to a very large Canadian university waiting for her under the guise it was a “visit’. MARRIED, against her will to a man 30 years older. Raped, beaten, abused. Finally, after sustaining this horrific behaviour for about a year, sympathetic cousins smuggled her to England where she ended up on teh streets … turned to drugs. Eventually, thank god, she somehow made it back to Canada where she stayed with some old school friends and is just now starting to get her life together. She has to do so under an assumed name as her extended family lives in several of the large centres in Canada. So she is in hiding, fragile, abused but at least free. That is not a story – I know the child.

5. I agree with Emily. It needs to stop, but there is no real way to chase parents to other countries this way.

   Forced marriage needs to be prosecuted as kidnapping/ rape, even if it takes down a whole family. But more importantly, there should be more services provided by government such as social workers and safe-houses for women (of all cultures, situations, etc.) wishing to escape a life like this.

   Since this crime is happening at younger ages, perhaps they should also include information on ways to escape this in schools. Let young girls know that there is a place, there are advocates who would be willing to protect them.

6. So complicated and so horrible! Hard to even know where to start.

   I think this is an issue, though, where setting up a system that allows girls to have leverage against their families might allow individuals to avoid such an arrangement or to take action against whomever forced them into the situation but just provides disincentives. If there is a fine for forcing your daughter into marriage, then it’s cheaper/less risky/more pragmatic to just let her marry who she likes. However, pragmatism doesn’t always govern intra-familial relationships and might not do much to stop it. Also, it has the ultimate end of pitting young women in the legal system against their families, which is certainly necessary at times, but has obvious deterrent effect on young women. I am guessing that most of these women would not want to call the police on their parents, or testify against them in a trial, or anything like that.

   I would be curious to know what kind of outreach/education programs exist for getting mothers on board to combat this practice, as it seems like they would be in the best position to persuade fathers to keep their daughters in Britain and in safe(r) marriage arrangements.

7. The problem is that this isn’t about forced marriages happening in Britain (though that would not shock me either – but I imagine they happen on a smaller scale), but that these children are being moved abroad. It is no mean feat to track the movement of thousands upon thousands of immigrants (and not all minorities are ‘immigrants’ in that many of them were born in the country, and many who were not hold UK passports). Technically you probably aren’t allowed to keep your child in the UK without their receiving some sort of education (although some form of homeschooling is allowed, but I don’t know how much paperwork it needs) I dont’ know how strictly enforced it is in practice. It could be that with immgrant communities, that might move around or leave the countrry then come back etc the government looks the other way more. The age at which children can leave school is 16.

   The thing is, I’m worried that information at schools won’t help much. A lot of these girls probably go to Muslim schools, and I don’t know if all Muslim schools would in practice wish to move against parents and try to prevent it. Even standard state schools probably treat minorities with a measure of caution and resignation when it comes to cultural matters. I’d like to hope that something can be done, and maybe this would help, but I can’t help fearing that in practice it wouldn’t make a big impact. Whilst there isn’t enough debate on this in the communities involved, we need moderate Muslims to argue against it, because in the end, they have the most chance of reaching the ears of victims and abusers alike. We need to have more centers, with staff who are supportive and culturally aware (Muslim women would be best, probably) that young women can turn to if they need. We need them to know that there will be someobdy there for them who will understand them. I think changes will be slow, and very hard work.

   What also complicates things is that many immigrant families spend periods of time back in their native country, or move back for legitimate reasons.
   Add to that that some young Muslim women (a few I know, for instance) choose to go abroad to meet potential husbands. This all makes it harder to unravel which families are foricng their daughters to marry, and which are simply moving back home. I don’t think we could be able to make headway without real help from Pakistan (among other countries), because that is where these marriages are happpening.

   But I second the statement that this shouldn’t be about cultural sensitivities. We cannot give Muslim girls and women less rights than any other person in the country, and it is against anybody’s human rights to be forced into marriage against one’s will, to be betrayed by your family(whatever their intentions) and sold into rape. I’m perfectly aware that every culture has problems, and that not all Muslims think this is acceptable. I jsut want us to work harder so that we don’t let these women and girls down as much as we currently do.

8. As others have said, what good is it to keep this easier to track, if that doesn’t contribute toward actually preventing the harm. This is kidnapping, pure and simple, and should be prosecuted as such.

   You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.

   (Attributed to General Charles James Napier, but not well sourced.

9. My best friend has been/is going through something like this, though on a gentler scale. She’s Indian and had been planning on doing the arranged marriage thing for quite a long time. However, in the past year the level of coercion on the part of her parents (at the advice of their guru) has been absolutely obscene. She was given a choice at one point to marry this guy, immediately, knowing that he was controlling and invasive, or lose them. She unfortunately chose to get legally married. And now she’s living in California (grew up in Illinois) with extended family against her will and in the next few months will go back to India for the big 3 day wedding. I’m seriously afraid he’s going to turn abusive and have already started to gather information for when she needs it.

   I definitely believe this is more common than people realize.

10. One thing that might make it easier is if children born in the UK automatically received British citizenship. I’m not sure how it works in Britain, but in Germany children of immigrants have the right to apply for citizenship, but do not automatically have citizenship. The result is that social workers go around in immigrant neighborhoods urging kids (particularly girls of age to be at risk for forced marriage) to fill out the forms and periodic scenes in airports in which some kid realizes what this “visit” to the old country really means at just the wrong minute. Automatic citizenship, maybe dual citizenship until adulthood so the kids don’t have to give up the connection to their parents’ country unless they want to, might put a stop to this sort of thing, or at least decrease the incidence.

11. The thing is, it’s not necessarily kidnapping. It feels like kidnapping to us when we read about it, and to at least some/many of these girls (like the one who thought maybe someone from her school would come looking for her). But generally, in the US at least, parents who have custody of their minor children are allowed to take their minor children out of the country whether the child wants to go or not. If there’s no custody order granting partial custody to a parent/guardian who does not want the child to leave the country, or to the state, then it’s not kidnapping to take your own child out of the country.

    I think that’s what makes the situation so difficult to conceptualize a response to. Children do not necessarily have a right to remain in Britain if their parents do not want them to. Perhaps one way to address it would be outreach to mothers. If the mothers are reluctant or the mothers dissent, then the fathers would presumably not have the right to take the child out of the country against the mother’s wishes.

    An anecdote, but when I was 17, I went on a trip to Mexico with my dad, and before they would let us on the plane they required a notarized letter of permission from my mother or that my father sign a legal document under oath stating he had sole custody of me.

12. But, for the woman who had graduated from high school, and assuming she was 18, that would be kidnapping.

13. Good, albeit heartbreaking, first person account here:

14. Second time’s the charm

15. But generally, in the US at least, parents who have custody of their minor children are allowed to take their minor children out of the country whether the child wants to go or not. If there’s no custody order granting partial custody to a parent/guardian who does not want the child to leave the country, or to the state, then it’s not kidnapping to take your own child out of the country.

    In principle, both parents have to agree before the child can be taken out of the country. I know this because my partner and daughter went to Mexico without me a while ago and they had to have a notarized statement from me that I agreed to it before they could travel. At least, in theory they needed the statement. In practice, no one checked the documentation, so it’s probably relatively easy for one parent to take a child out of the country without the other’s consent. But it is technically illegal.

16. The thing is, it’s not necessarily kidnapping.

    Not necessarily legally kidnapping. People under 18 should have more rights than they legally do.

17. Okay, so kidnapping doesn’t cover this. How about the various international trafficking laws?

18. The fact is the UK makes efforts to restrict this practise. And the efforts are growing. The Forced Marriage Unit is joint government departmental in scope (based at the Foreign Office) and has increasing resources. Plus immigrations officers are trained to look for cases, and far more than should be discussed is done. The numbers are interesting… this ‘4000’, but it sounds probably right. The split is about 90% women, 10% men who are forced into marriage.

19. How’s about putting up the parental funds to prevent this. They are all so willing to move to the UK, let’s have them los some serious cash if they marry off their daughter without her consent. For every minor girl they will have to place 30,000 pounds in an escrow fund. They won’t see a penny of it until she returns.

20. I think they need to start teaching children to find the Embassy of their country if they want to escape (though I know that’s not always possible). Maybe if they had some sort of registry where if you knew you’re parents are taking you overseas you could sign up for a “go rescue me if I don’t make it out” type of thing. I think Governments should be a lot more willing to help out their citizens overseas.

21. international trafficking laws don’t forbid parents from moving their minor children anywhere they please. nor should they.
    There just doesn’t seem to be a legal solution to young girls being coerced into marriage abroad. There are also not legal solutions to other forms of coercion (or just limiting of life choices) that parents subject their daughters to: pressuring girls to drop out of school or out of after-school activities in order to help out the family; pressuring girls not to go to college; controlling girls’ sexuality to an extreme degree; pressuring girls to not take classes in traditionally masculine subjects; not allowing girls to participate in co-ed extracurricular activities.
    None of these are illegal, and while none of them are as destructive as early and coercive marriage, they harm girls later in life.
    In my (relatively limited) experience working with teenage girls who are dealing with these issues, having supportive adult women in their lives makes it easier for these girls to break out of their limitations in a way that preserves their relationship with their families. This can be anyone from a teacher, a mentor in an extra-curricular activity, a neighbor or a relative. I think this is one of many, many, many situations illustrating how strongly young girls need access to supportive mentors.

22. and for the love of fuck, would people please please stop tossing out that ridiculous Napier quote. It is so offensive that it makes me sick.

23. btw: if you google “forced marriage” and “britain” one of the links that will come up is the southall black sisters forced marriage campaign. They are in desperate need of money right now anyway, so all the more reason to send some their way.

24. Vail – Governments (UK in this instance) do help their citizens overseas. People do have the opportunity to tell immigration officers. HMG does do overseas rescues (check the media). But you try locating someone in Wajirizstan. Pakistan and the US have spent the last 6 years trying to find OBL there with no luck.

    After the event there is opportunity to inform the authorities. The Government does target areas and schools to educate.

    Now, you are right on one point. If I do not speak Pashtun, have had my passport taken from me, had no money, and was in a village with no phones, I may struggle to contact the embassy.

25. “For every minor girl they will have to place 30,000 pounds in an escrow fund. They won’t see a penny of it until she returns.”

    Yes because turning a girl’s own life into a financial transaction, just another buying and selling of women’s bodies and lives like cattle, fixes everything. Tell me again what’s wrong with making it illegal?

26. One thing that might make it easier is if children born in the UK automatically received British citizenship. I’m not sure how it works in Britain, but in Germany children of immigrants have the right to apply for citizenship, but do not automatically have citizenship.

    Diane, I’m pretty sure they do get automatic citizenship here in the UK, so long as their parents are legal immigrants, even if the parents don’t hold a UK passport. That’s my experience.

    the problem is, how do you know which parents are just moving abroad and taking their kids (something which might be unpleasant for the kids, but still important to the parents, or even the best option), and those moving abroad to marry off their teenaged or prepubescent daughters? I’ts not an easy thing, so I guess for now we need to focus on reaching out to the girls, but also building a community around them which does not deem it acceptable, which will be far harder.

27. Islam……

28. Diane, I’m pretty sure they do get automatic citizenship here in the UK, so long as their parents are legal immigrants, even if the parents don’t hold a UK passport. That’s my experience.

    From what I read on my passport application a couple of years back, someone born in the UK after about 1983 needs to provide further information about their parents, so I’m not so sure it is automatic.

29. I wish the USA would go rescue children kidnapped and taken overseas. I know of many stories where the mother had custody and the ex-husband took off with them and the mothers never saw their kids again. In many cases the father didn’t even need a passport for the children, as many countries will let the children travel under the father’s passport.

30. Annalouise: no, just moving with your children is not trafficking.
    But moving them in order to get them into a forced marriage certainly looks like it to me.

    And what about that Napier quote is offensive?

31. Please explain what is so offensive about that Napier quote? Thanks!

32. No, I disagree that parents SHOULD have this level of control over their children. Even for benign reasons, a 16-year-old knows if he or she wants to go to a foreign country. I wish there was more of a graduation of rights between being property at 17 and a person at 18.

33. Daniel, take a close look at some of the Fundie Christian churches before you go knocking Islam. In some of them, young teenage girls are forced into marriage with older men. In fact, sometimes it is women in general, no matter their age. According to some, women are incapable of making their own decisions and have to have a man to do it for them. Fundies seem to be the same, no matter what moniker they hang on their god.

    I’m a non-believer, so I feel perfectly fine saying that religion should never be accepted as an excuse for bad behavior, whether it’s forced marriage or picketing funerals, but I’m aware I’m a minority in that. Draw the line in the sand and stick with it, no matter the religious claptrap or excuse used.

34. Ashley brings up an important point- a legal solution is not going to be enough. In many cases, there is enormous pressure from the parents or other family members to go along with the arranged marriage. While there may technically be a choice for the young woman or girl to decline the arranged marriage, in some cases this may come at the cost of being cut off from the family altogether, or knowing that your parents will be even stricter with your younger sisters. Even if you know that you could legally refuse the marriage and you have a job or some means of supporting yourself, you might sacrifice that option if the personal stakes were high enough (in one family I know of, the father threatened to cut off contact completely and move the entire family, including the younger sister who was about to start college in the US, back to India; the older sister then agreed to the marriage).
    In cases like this, I don’t see how any more legislation could help. It’s a choice that the girl or young woman has to make, and the rest of us can only try to support her.

35. A lot of these girls probably go to Muslim schools, and I don’t know if all Muslim schools would in practice wish to move against parents and try to prevent it.

    Forced marriage is forbidden in Islam.

    Problem is, this issue is clouded by culture. If culture says “I own my child” – people will find a way to twist religious text to suit this purpose.

    Btw, the forced marriage thing happens to men in Britain as well. Not on the same scale, but it’s bad enough to where some men are asking for government funding for a shelter, or something that can help.

36. And what about that Napier quote is offensive?

    Please explain what is so offensive about that Napier quote?

    The assertion that extra-legal and extra-judicial mass capital punishment is desirable?

    The implication that British colonials had any kind of moral authority?

    The idea that taking over a country 10,000 miles away is a good basis for social justice?

    I’m just guessing, I’m pretty drunk.*

    * To quote the great Toby Ziegler.

37. Maybe there should just be a rule…. No marriage until age 18 no matter what. And then force other countries not to allow USA or British citizens to marry unless they are 18. I know that’s it’s not really possible to force them, but you can cut off funding to that country if they allow under-age marriage. Of course this would piss off the Far Right which believes that girls should marry if they get preggers no matter what the age.

38. Yes, you can.

    from a local UK law centre’s website:

    If neither parent is a British citizen, a child born here on after 1 January 1983 will still be a British citizen if either the father or mother is legally settled. ‘Settled’ means ordinarily resident (see paragraph 16) in the United Kingdom without being limited under the immigration laws as to how long the person can stay here. For this purpose, a person cannot be ordinarily resident if he or she is in breach of the immigration laws. We do not consider certain members of diplomatic or consular missions, or members of visiting forces or international organisation as being settled here, even if immigration control does not apply to them.

    So as long as at least one parent has a non-diplomatic visa to live in the UK indefinitely (as opposed to say a 6 month student visa), the child will be born a British citizen, even if it’s parents are not. I personally know people for whom this has been true in practice.

    Of course, that doesn’t help the children of illegal immigrants, who would not be eligible, and students who have children whilst on temporary visas.

    Forced marriage is forbidden in Islam.

    Problem is, this issue is clouded by culture. If culture says “I own my child” – people will find a way to twist religious text to suit this purpose.

    Thanks for bringing that up, Natalia. It’s often easy to equate a religion with the cultural practice thereof, and it’s important to make the point that not all Muslims, or the majority thereof believe this acceptable, or taught by their religion. The problem I was trying to highlight wasn’t that Muslim schools would enforce it because ther are Muslim, but that they might not be immune to the cultural aspect of it, and some may not wish to intervene if they believe that parents have the right to do whatever they wish to their children. We all of us are loath to intervene in ‘personal business’, and when that personal business is interpreted as religon by many, it becomes more complicated.

39. We all of us are loath to intervene in ‘personal business’, and when that personal business is interpreted as religon by many, it becomes more complicated.

    Exactly. Not to mention the attitude that “as long as it’s THOSE people doing it somewhere out of my sight, then it’s OK.” Sometimes the two go hand-in-hand, sometimes they do not.

40. There is sometimes a place for stiff-upper-lip old-fashioned British patriarchal military intervention. I’d say burning women alive is one of the few clear-cut examples!

    Same in this case. The long arm of the law should be wielding a club over the heads of any people who want to force their daughters into marriage. The only other solution is to not allow immigration from countries with cultures that are radically different from Britain, if they are not comfortable “imposing” things like no forced marriage and no FGM.

41. Exactly. Not to mention the attitude that “as long as it’s THOSE people doing it somewhere out of my sight, then it’s OK.” Sometimes the two go hand-in-hand, sometimes they do not.

    Precisely. A lot of people, whether through good intentions, or latent racism, don’t really want anything to do with communities from other cultures, because they’re so different, they don’t want to offend them, they find their customs ‘odd’, or whatever, and then we get this really awful situation where ther is no communication between some immigrant communities and ‘natives’. It’s not easy, because many westerners are very guilty of judging foreigners of the worst sort of things, and are completely ignorant of the problems faced, and the nuances and difficulties of trying to improve the lives of women (and LTBT people) in different cultures. You also get people like Chave, who sees nothing wrong with out and out Imperialism, because, hey, we Brits always know best!

    All in all, it doesn’t surprise me that many feminists (in theory) of colour are wary of using the label of feminism, if they see it being used daily by every idiot as an excuse to heap scorn on their culture and religion which they know nothing about. I think it most important for us to support and listen to women in these commnities who want equality. We should listen to what they want, and help them int heir battle, not borrow their cause so that we can beat those heathens.

    There is sometimes a place for stiff-upper-lip old-fashioned British patriarchal military intervention. I’d say burning women alive is one of the few clear-cut examples!

    Yes, those heathens were just asking for it. And then the brits were *shocked* when Indians wanted independence?

    Why? Why exactly woud the answer to a cultural, deeply ingrained patriarchical problem that many women see as being acceptable because they’ve grown up with it and got used to it and don’t expect any better, be to run in with all guns blazing, and declare ourselves morally superior? What, are we some paragons of feminist virtue? We in the UK, who do fuck all to convict British rapists in this country, and spit on the rights of the most vulnerable women, the sex workers and the teenage mothers and rape victims and victims of abuse? We never get sick of telling women they ‘have equality’, that they’re ‘just being selfish’ if tehy want anything they don’t have, and that ‘men are just men’. Sure, forced marriages amongst anglo-saxon-type people isn’t very common, but that does NOT mean that we do not have plenty of equally serious problems with regards to women. But does anybody mention that? Hell, no, nobody mentions misogyny, unless it’s perbetrated by some foreigners, in which case they are eevil misogynists, adn we must punish them by the full force of our wonderful equal laws…

    Why? Because they’re brown. Because they’re different, because most of society still sees its religion, its viewpoint as the acceptable one, and every other as suspect, something to be scrutinised. We as a society are perfectly willing to rape and abuse our own women, but focus on other religions and cultures as being evil. Because we can say ‘oh, their women can’t have asked for it, they were all wearing burkhas, but our women, they’re just slutty!’.

    I thnk the fact that your primary focus is on punishment, not helping victims or prevention through education, dicsussion and encouraging moderate Muslims to speak up, rather telling. Somebody just wants to punish the brown people, and this just seems like an easy excuse. And threatening to not let anybody into the country just seals the deal.

    How about we kick anybody out of the country who isn’t pro-choice? How about we kick out all of the rapists and abusers (which is what the husbands in these forced marriages are, when it comes down to it)?
    That would never be a question, because we never hold people already in a country to half of the standards we expect of immigrants, or people in other countries.

    I would agree that communities should be given more help to integrate, and it should be patently clear that you should follow the laws of the land you choose to live in, and that tue Uk values freedom of religion, but ultimately the human righst of all individuals involved. I do believe that human rights are universal, and belong to every individual, and that FGM should be outlawed.

    But I think that blaming all the Muslims is not going to help, nor is assuming that we are perfect.

    Maybe there should just be a rule…. No marriage until age 18 no matter what. And then force other countries not to allow USA or British citizens to marry unless they are 18. I know that’s it’s not really possible to force them, but you can cut off funding to that country if they allow under-age marriage. Of course this would piss off the Far Right which believes that girls should marry if they get preggers no matter what the age.

    That would be useless. Many of the girls might not have a UK passport, and if one could get Pakistan to agree to such a law, I think many would be very surprised. Then again, if the family see the marriage as being ‘legal’ in terms of their religion, it might not even be improtant to them for it to be legally legal- they could just force her to go sign for to legally when she’s 18, after being ‘married’ for 6 years illegally.

42. There is sometimes a place for stiff-upper-lip old-fashioned British patriarchal military intervention. I’d say burning women alive is one of the few clear-cut examples!

    Ah, yes! We should all sing the tune “Oh, Britannia!” as the glorious British Imperial forces and the Christian missionaries go off to bring “civilization” to the unwashed “uncivilized” masses. /snk

    Oh, wait….didn’t the British start do this a few hundred odd years ago…..

    Moreover, it is not as if the “civilized” British Empire is untainted by brutal criminal behavior themselves in their quest for empire. For instance, their actions supported one of history’s first international drug cartels* in modern times.

    Using this method to stop forced marriages would only further highlight historical British hypocrisy and possibly end up needlessly providing forced marriage practitioners/advocates the cloak of being noble anti-colonialists fighting against any attempts by Britain and the West of imposing its dubiously “civilized” rule upon their societies.

    * The “Honourable” East India Company.

43. Fuzz, Anne Onne:

    The implication that colonialism is a good thing is rather small compared to the implication that laws should be enforced even-handedly. Colonialism is a bad thing. Being in a position of authority and not enforcing the law because the victims are Hindu women and the perpetrators Hindu is worse than that.

    (Extra-judicial? (a) they were the effective authority in that time and place. (b) Defense of others (or self) is a legitimate extra-judicial use of power. I’m all for “vigilantes” to attack criminals while the crime is happening. After the crime is over, of course, the courts are the proper recourse.)

    The situation here is even more clear cut — horrible crimes, by the standard of the UK, are being committed against people living in the UK.

44. Jess, do we know the same girl? Because that was very much one element of my friend’s situation.

45. This is a horrible thing that these young women are being forced into, and everything must be done to stop these practices as well as help the children. One thing that I fear is that the children will simply be abandoned by the parents if they can’t do what they want with them.

    Education, I believe, for both parents and children will help out the most as a preventative measure before any punishment. I’ve read tales of parents, men, in Afghanistan who, after talking with educators about giving their daughters a chance at education, have turned around and even helped in car-pooling several other daughters of other parents to school.

    It’s definitely not so easy to work with, but at least we can all agree that this is a stupid, horrible practice that must be stopped. It’s hurting the futures of young women.

46. I didn’t mean that Britain shouldn’t allow any immigration from non-Western countries. I was simply saying that if people find it distasteful or wrong or somehow misguided to apply their own cultural standards and laws to incoming immigrants (basic things like: “no forcing your 12-year-old daughter to marry”), then there are two choices: look the other way while reprehensible things happen, or decide you won’t let them come in the first place. I’d rather enforce the law for all citizens equally.

    And I wasn’t saying “thank goodness the Brits came in and civilized the savages,” either. But, as long as the patriarchy has decided to charge in and do all sorts of bad things, I can’t get too upset about them doing some small redeeming act that happens to benefit women about to be burned alive. My multiculturalism doesn’t extend to excusing human sacrifice, rape, murder, and other unsavory things that are variously justified by local custom. Western culture is full of unsavory things we justify for different reasons, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t obligated to stop the most egregious ones where we’re able to.

47. My first Feministe comment after lurking for a good 9 months…lurking is such a negative term. How about ‘observing and absorbing’? Much better (and more true).

    I’d like to say that as a brown woman, I am sick to death of ‘brown=Muslim’. Because it doesn’t. My family (although it’s fair to say I have pretty considerably lapsed!) is uber-Catholic. I know a lot of people get this, but more people don’t – brown does not equal Muslim. It also does not equal terrorist, asylum seeker, illegal immigrant and in the case of brown women, it does not equal ‘poor downtrodden soul completely under male control at all times and must be rescued’. Nor does it equal ‘exotic mysterious desi I love to serve’.

    I’d also like to state that forced marriages do occur outside of brown families, as some commenter have mentioned, and that mostly, it’s to do with family ‘honour’ and male control. And this is where it needs to change. And more men should be speaking up about this.

    Under deeply sexist traditional attitudes, women are commodities and symbols of family honour. Generally speaking, a lot of brown families are religious, and most religions do not allow pre-marital sex. So if a woman in the family has pre-marital sex, or acts ‘inappropriately’ (wears short skirts or hangs around with boys, or even just hanging around instead of being a good girl at home helping mother), she is seen as disgracing the family and her behaviour must be stopped.

    Sons, especially if they’re first-born, can get away with everything.

    This has been true of white women in the past, and is still true for some now, but is seen as old-fashioned. And this is another thing – parents are scared of change, especially if they’re first-generation immigrants, and they partly justify removing their daughters from the UK because they don’t want her to be westernised. Which is ridiculous. I remember my dad not too long ago saying I should remember I am not white… I know I’m not white…but that doesn’t mean I should be subservient. It has nothing to do with me being brown and everything to do with me being not-white and a woman.

    Men are just too stupidly horribly protective about women, especially their daughters, and I think there are a hell of a lot of fractured relationships between daughters and fathers. Fathers and sons too, what with equally stupid perceived notions of manliness.

    I don’t know about hard and fast laws to stop this, but I do want men, brown men in particular, to stand up and say yes, this bullshit is wrong and it needs to stop.

    I haven’t said half of what I wanted to say and everything’s come out a bit garbled – my apologies.

48. Ashley- possibly. I only know her as a friend of a friend- Paula (I’m assuming you know Paula) told me part of the story in the context of another friend’s arranged marriage.

49. (Muslim women would be best, probably)

    That would be the worst. How likely are you to talk to someone who’s probably related to your dad? These are very tight-knit communities with everyone knowing everyone. Women in the family are just as complicit with the state of affairs as the men.

50. The money is because many will accept criminal penalties as part of their culture. Money talks, bullsh*t walks. If you have to put your own cash down, you’ll avoid losing it. The amount was designed to be a horrible financial hardship if there was an arranged marriage without her consent.

    Illegal only works if the penalty is large enough to scare perps into being law-abiding.

51. Being in a position of authority and not enforcing the law because the victims are Hindu women and the perpetrators Hindu is worse than that.

    Whoa there Silver! I NEVER said leave Hindu women to burn. I happen to think intervening is both legitimate and necessary. I said that capital punishment is offensive, I should hope that many people here agree with me. I think it’s all the more offensive when practiced en masse, by a colonial power with a penchant for mass murder, rape and torture, and then dressed up as moral superiority.

    Hanging people is just plain wrong. And cheerleading for hanging people is offensive.

    (Extra-judicial? (a) they were the effective authority in that time and place. (b) Defense of others (or self) is a legitimate extra-judicial use of power. I’m all for “vigilantes” to attack criminals while the crime is happening. After the crime is over, of course, the courts are the proper recourse.)

    I’m glad you think so. Read the Napier quote again. He’s advocating waiting for the burnings to be over, and then executing, summarily, the men*. If he were in favour of pulling women out of the fire, or stopping them from being burned in the first place, I’d be behind him 100%. But he’s not.

    You’re confusing “intervening to help people” with “retaliatory executions”. The former is noble, the latter is evil.

    As for proper authority, you’re giving the British presence in India a constitutional and legal legitimacy that I think is non-existant. They may have been in power, but they weren’t in authority. There is a world of difference.

    *Obviously, he was using rhetoric, as opposed to drafting detailed legislation, but still, rhetoric is telling.

52. Ok, fine, I admit it, I believe I have moral superiority. Now, I recognize that my culture has done terrible things and there is nothing at all particularly special about it. At the same time, I recognize that if you look at all the cultures of the world you see a similar story. Virtually all cultures start out doing horrific things, generally shitting on human rights, and digging themselves into a moral hole out of which they can never hope to climb. Sometimes an individual (or group of individuals) comes along and agitates for social change. This leads to bloody movement at a glacial pace in a fairly narrow area. After the better part of 500 years the west has made some tiny changes in what I believe is the right direction. Does that make the Brits and the US the good guy and everyone else evil? No, it just makes us marginally less evil.

    See, I believe that the west still has a very long way to go, that we aren’t even close to civilized, that as a society we still tolerate things any reasonable culture would have abolished centuries ago. Yes, we have Christian fundies who do the same evil things that Muslim fundies are doing and they are just as bad. At the same time, I’m not so sure thats an argument to import more evil.

53. Ohmigod. Can’t you admit that colonialism has been a mixed issue? Has the idea of “Noble Savage/Native” become dogma?
    Western ideals, English, modern technology, and freedoms have also been imports.

54. It is indeed rhetoric, not what Napier was actually advocating. It points out the fallacy of “it’s okay to do this, because it’s customary”. If he actually let things happen that way, it would indeed be horrific. The implication, however, is that it stopped that instance before it started. As the quote is somewhat apocryphal, it’s hard to say what the “actual” effects were. Am I wrong to think that this would likely result in a sharp decrease of widow burning?

    As for authority vs power, call it what you will. Having power to stop something evil and refusing to exercise it because that power wasn’t legitimately acquired seems much worse than doing nothing. This is true whether or not the power is being used for profit as well.

    Napier could not stop the bad effects of colonialism. He could, however, make a difference here.

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