Arts & Literature1 min ago
Acceptable Abuse?
32 Answers
Yet another consequence of integrating two widely differing cultures is that an estimated 5000 young women in the UK will be forced into marriage this year. A third of these will be under the age of 16.
These girls will be taken abroad during the school holidays on the pretext of attending a family wedding or visiting relatives and will find their lives forever changed.
Along with those being taken abroad to suffer FGM they form what appears to be a steady flow of young girls being taken abroad from this country every year in order to circumvent the laws of this country.
We seem to be unable to prevent this wholesale abuse of children and they seem to have no "Human Rights"
What can be done?
http://
These girls will be taken abroad during the school holidays on the pretext of attending a family wedding or visiting relatives and will find their lives forever changed.
Along with those being taken abroad to suffer FGM they form what appears to be a steady flow of young girls being taken abroad from this country every year in order to circumvent the laws of this country.
We seem to be unable to prevent this wholesale abuse of children and they seem to have no "Human Rights"
What can be done?
http://
Answers
The problem is, as I said before, the general reluctance and often outright refusal to criticise religion and the cultural practices it sanctions – and that needs to change. Wrong is wrong, but religion is deemed to be beyond criticism, regardless of what it does, and therefore arranged marriages are overlooked, and the mutilated victims of FGM who...
06:59 Sun 11th Aug 2013
When my children were school age I know for certain that if they didn't return to school after summer holidays that questions would have been asked and I would have expected a visit from the "truancy inspector". Has this monitoring stopped or are we, once again, dancing around the issue for fear of upsetting certain sections of the population.
hc - "I was told the only way I could come back to the UK is if I got pregnant. At the time I did not know what that was - I was that naive. All I could do was pray. I did get pregnant about five months later and my mother took me back to the UK."
This from the girl in the article who was 13 at the time.
It seems that once married they stay with the husband until they are pregnant and are then brought back to the UK. I am only guessing but it would seem to be a logical progression then to ask for the husband to be allowed into the UK to support his "wife" and child.
This from the girl in the article who was 13 at the time.
It seems that once married they stay with the husband until they are pregnant and are then brought back to the UK. I am only guessing but it would seem to be a logical progression then to ask for the husband to be allowed into the UK to support his "wife" and child.
Forced marriages don’t only happen abroad – they happen here too – and to girls far below the legal age. Much of the problem has been the on-going reluctance to criticise religion and the culture that emanates from it – but with Muslim women now speaking out, hopefully that is changing. A big step forward would be for the government to action its plans to follow the example of Scotland.
There is no way that this government or any other will effectively tackle this.
They may huff and puff and tinker round the edges; they may threaten all manner of measures which they believe a gullible public will accept as happening just because they said it will. But at the end of the day both forced marriages and the much more vile FGM will continue both here and to victims taken from the UK to be dealt with abroad. As naomi mentions, all governments are absolutely petrified of introducing effective measures to prevent these occurrences, they will not introduce effective and deterrent sentencing of those found guilty and they will not sanction the removal from the UK (or prevention of re-entry) of those who carry on with such medieval practices.
I know personally of two cases of forced marriages (one involving a fifteen year old female, the other a twenty year old male). Both were taken “on holiday”. Both returned with a spouse, neither of whom could speak a word of English, who had never set foot in the UK before and would contribute absolutely nothing to this country. Both “wives” were pregnant within a few weeks of arrival. They now have seven children between them. The male disappeared entirely about a year ago and he confided in me before then that he was extremely unhappy, having had no adolescence to speak of as the plan was always for him to marry as soon as circumstances permitted - something he had been informed of from the age of about eight.
This behaviour is abhorrent to the vast majority of people in the UK but because it is acceptable elsewhere we must, if not embrace it, not fret too much about it for fear of upsetting the apple cart. Yes, we are seeing the odd one or two cases where abuse has been recognised and dealt with. But the problem is so widespread that it is fanciful in the extreme to imagine that it will ever be reduced at all, let alone eliminated. But such are the joys of living in a multicultural society - huge numbers of youngsters having their partners selected for them and their futures confined.
They may huff and puff and tinker round the edges; they may threaten all manner of measures which they believe a gullible public will accept as happening just because they said it will. But at the end of the day both forced marriages and the much more vile FGM will continue both here and to victims taken from the UK to be dealt with abroad. As naomi mentions, all governments are absolutely petrified of introducing effective measures to prevent these occurrences, they will not introduce effective and deterrent sentencing of those found guilty and they will not sanction the removal from the UK (or prevention of re-entry) of those who carry on with such medieval practices.
I know personally of two cases of forced marriages (one involving a fifteen year old female, the other a twenty year old male). Both were taken “on holiday”. Both returned with a spouse, neither of whom could speak a word of English, who had never set foot in the UK before and would contribute absolutely nothing to this country. Both “wives” were pregnant within a few weeks of arrival. They now have seven children between them. The male disappeared entirely about a year ago and he confided in me before then that he was extremely unhappy, having had no adolescence to speak of as the plan was always for him to marry as soon as circumstances permitted - something he had been informed of from the age of about eight.
This behaviour is abhorrent to the vast majority of people in the UK but because it is acceptable elsewhere we must, if not embrace it, not fret too much about it for fear of upsetting the apple cart. Yes, we are seeing the odd one or two cases where abuse has been recognised and dealt with. But the problem is so widespread that it is fanciful in the extreme to imagine that it will ever be reduced at all, let alone eliminated. But such are the joys of living in a multicultural society - huge numbers of youngsters having their partners selected for them and their futures confined.
-- answer removed --
@SandyRoe
//If the law was changed so that marrying a UK citizen didn't bring with it the right of residency here this type of abuse might be reduced. //
It would be interesting to know if there is enough historical evidence (would take some cooperative citizens to get testimony) to prove that the existence of this law has caused behaviour to change, in response.
I'm familiar of the concept of tax laws being tweaked because the chancellor of the day wants more money directed into savings (bygones!), or the business sector but, here we have a law affecting human behaviour on a basic level.
Where the spirirt of the law is all about compassion and the tugging of heartstrings of having a partner thousands of miles away, the actual result is is this widespread *lifetime* misery and physical mutilation.
If we scrap this law, this is the excuse that staff will have to repeat, dozens of times per day. Let us hope it does not constitute incitement to racial hatred, or some such.
//If the law was changed so that marrying a UK citizen didn't bring with it the right of residency here this type of abuse might be reduced. //
It would be interesting to know if there is enough historical evidence (would take some cooperative citizens to get testimony) to prove that the existence of this law has caused behaviour to change, in response.
I'm familiar of the concept of tax laws being tweaked because the chancellor of the day wants more money directed into savings (bygones!), or the business sector but, here we have a law affecting human behaviour on a basic level.
Where the spirirt of the law is all about compassion and the tugging of heartstrings of having a partner thousands of miles away, the actual result is is this widespread *lifetime* misery and physical mutilation.
If we scrap this law, this is the excuse that staff will have to repeat, dozens of times per day. Let us hope it does not constitute incitement to racial hatred, or some such.
-- answer removed --
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