British Imams:force Marriage Scandal

[agchristie]

How prevalent is this I wonder? Tragic.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/648630/forced-marriages-scandal-British-Imams-marrying-off-young-girls-men-abroad-Skype

[ToraToraTora]

very, standard stuff for this barbaric religion.

[naomi24]

Bit quiet around here isn't it ag?

What a pity these Imams who utilise the latest technology, and the parents who employ them, refuse to bring their brains into the 21st century. Marriages of little girls to grown men conducted in this country aren't unknown by any means. This new innovation is just one step on. How to stop it? That's the question.

[murraymints]

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/islamic-studies-tutor-raped-14yearold-girl-and-left-her-pregnant-a3191611.html


bit off topic..but...

[agchristie]

Naomi, yes, it is quiet.

Couldn't agree more with your assessment of this. How big is the iceberg under that tip and yes, how to stop it?

[bazwillrun]

"with the girls' new husbands then applying for a Visa to come and join them in the UK. "

this has been going on for years one way or another with the asians and africans, this is just another mob who know every trick in the book to get more of them in here "illegally"

[jourdain2]

We used to notice that a girl (13/14 yrs) was missing from school and make enquiries. The reply was always 'She's gone back to Pakistan' and that was that. Some cases we managed to get a bit further with her friends letting slip that she'd been shipped off to be married. Couldn't do much about it.

I do remember one childish (honestly top end ESN) girl called Fozia trilling on about going to Pakistan with the family, very excited to miss half a term at school. She never came back. It transpired that she had been married to a 50 yr. old male. She fetched a good price because she was British.
I got all this later from her friends.

[jourdain2]

^^^ What I meant to say was that it is obviously now all up-to-date and obviates the need for a trip to Pakistan.

[douglas9401]

Just when you think that the bestial behaviour of certain adherents to this cult can get no worse they go and prove you wrong.

A for effort.

Now let's have the forces of law and order utilise their IT expertise in following each and every trail on the web and we can get these pimps locked up.

[agchristie]

Hear, hear Douglas

[naomi24]

Unsurprisingly the people who usually shout loud and clear in defence of Islam are notable by their silence on this thread.

[agchristie]

Naomi, yes, a muted response to this one, looks like all the energies went into the London Mayor today!

[naomi24]

Mmmm ... maybe. ;o)

[DaisyNonna]

Absolutely sickening
And people still wonder why Islam is criticised?

[sandyRoe]

Can Imam's solemnize a marriage here in the UK?

[Hypognosis]

Again, a case of someone in Westminster dreamed up this spousal import rule to help out either themselves or a chum who'd picked up the hottie of their choice from the USA, or Europe or the Far East. So, for the sake of what used to be a fairly rare event, for white folk, we have created a rule which leads to the not-so-rare incidence (thousands per annum??) of whirlwind holiday romances between schoolgirls and 50-year-old single guys (party animals, the lot of us, at that age, no?) in "certain parts of the world".

How about tweaking that rule so that both participants have to be over 18 (because by that age, many *of the kind of people we want* would be embroiled in degree-level education, by then.

Basically a "no plebian spouses" rule.

[jourdain2]

I'd like to think that that would work, Hypognosis; but a friend of my daughter was told by her parents when she was in the 6th form that they would only permit her to go to university if she were married first. My daughter asked me for information and advice (provided) and there were 'girl friends group meetings', but in the end, and against all advice, her friend agreed to the terms reckoning that once she qualified (Law, I think) she would slam in for a divorce. No-one knows what the outcome was.

[naomi24]

//Can Imam's solemnize a marriage here in the UK? //

No. Many Muslims are married in Muslim ceremonies here in the UK but those marriages aren't legally recognised. Couples married in that way must go through another ceremony conducted by a Registrar for marriage to be legal, but many don't.

[Hypognosis]

@jourdain2

That tale was enlightening, with an ending bordering on the sinister!

The pressure to get offspring to marry off and start knocking out grandchildren while still young isn't that odd - if you've just been watching some 1950s kitchen-sink drama. I don't think we were so different. (Before my time, I hasten to add. I was never nagged by parents, something they, perhaps, now regret).

And it is worth bearing in mind that all our (euphemism alert!) "recent arrivals" are not steeped in our culture, as we are, by having watched decades' worth of western back-catalogue movies/TV. If they were forced to (but internment camps are frowned upon) they should soon twig that, if an old movie chimes with their present-day values and a recent one clashes with them, then they are behind the times and may need to reconsider.

Arguably, traditional behaviours are part of the fabric of 'culture' and, if preservation of that, in a foreign land, is oh-so-important, then I can understand their stance. It is entirely their loss if they disadvantage their offspring's career progress by diverting them into child-rearing for some years.

On the other hand, what if they're right? What is so great about being a successful, rich, lawyer etc. yet childless, when all that really matters, in life, is ensuring the family line is continued?

Feminism is all very well but which gender role is, ultimately, the more important, in the long run?

(Apologies if that reads like sexism. One or two glass ceilings still to be broken but the point about abilities has been proven millions of times over).

[Hypognosis]

@naomi

//but those marriages aren't legally recognised. //

Next in the queue, then, seeing as how gay marriages got the nod?