Category Archives: Family

Forced Marriage in the UK: An Abuse of Human Rights – Southall Black Sisters Campaign

SBS calls for an end to serious human rights violations affecting children, girls and women’s rights

Support our 10 recommendations to the UK government as a step to eradicate forced marriage and honour based violence.

Southall Black Sisters (SBS) is a leading multi-awarding winning black and minority ethnic (BME) women’s organisation, founded in 1979. It provides holistic resource centre services to help BME women and children experiencing gender based violence, including domestic and sexual violence, forced marriage, dowry abuse and honour based violence (HBV) or honour crimes. We also campaign and conduct policy, educational, developmental and research work on violence against BME women and girls.

SBS has worked on forced marriage, incorporating child and early forced marriage (CEFM) for 35 years. It was an original member of the Home Office Working Group on Forced Marriage (1999), which was the first government body to investigate the issue in the UK. SBS also helped to introduce the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007 and the statutory and practice multi-agency forced marriage guidelines. It has worked with the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to develop its policies on forced marriage and HBV.

SBS welcome these positive developments. However, it is concerned, along with many other BME women’s organisations, that criminalisation of forced marriage, introduced in June 2014, would drive the problem underground. Many victims/survivors, while wanting protection from the criminal justice system, do not want to prosecute and get their parents and families ‘into trouble.’ In order to minimise these problems, and to improve responses to the problem of forced marriage, we have made a number of recommendations to the UK government listed below.

We Call For:

  1. More resources, legal aid and services to protect and support victims/survivors.
  2. Adequate and sustainable state funding for frontline BME women’s organisations to provide refuges/safe houses, information, advice, advocacy, support and counselling for victims/survivors- this includes a central government funding stream.
  3. Effective enforcement mechanisms and inspection of public agencies to ensure effective implementation of statutory forced marriage guidelines.
  4. Mandatory training programmes for public agencies, in consultation, and delivered in conjunction, with BME women’s organisations.
  5. More funding and support for prevention work within communities and with young people led by BME women’s organisations.
  6. Incorporation of forced marriage and other forms of violence against BME women and girls into the national curriculum and making Personal, Health and Social Education (PHSE) statutory within a ’whole school’ approach.
  7. Provision of adequate welfare benefits and reform of housing law so that interpretation of ’vulnerability’ by local authority housing departments include victims/survivors and couples escaping forced marriage.
  8. Reforms in immigration, asylum and no recourse to public funds policy and implementation to ensure victims/survivors are not entrapped in forced marriage or abusive relationships, face deportation or destitution or returned to gender related violence in their country of origin.
  9. BME Women’s groups are consulted on and involved in developing policy on violence against women and girls, including Forced marriage, and that their needs are fully integrated in these and other mainstream policies and initiatives.
  10. Implementation of human rights conventions and declarations, including Convention on the Rights of the Child, Convention for the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Istanbul Convention.

By adding your voice to this campaign, you will help safeguard young girls and women victims of forced marriage and honour based violence.

If you would like to support these recommendations please sign at http://www.southallblacksisters.org.uk/forced-marriage-uk-abuse-human-rights/

July 25, 2014

MWNUK Welcomes New Forced Marriage Laws

The Muslim Women’s Network UK (MWNUK) welcomes new laws criminalising Forced Marriage which will came into effect on 16 June 2014.

MWNUK and its’ members have decades of experience of dealing with forced marriage cases. While there has been a steady shift in accepting its practice as wrong, many victims often realise this too late. Through working in schools, MWNUK has found that many young people confuse the difference between an arranged marriage (where both bride and groom have the free will to say no to the suggested marriage) and a forced marriage (where there is no freedom of choice). The situation is conflated by pressure from family members which when taken in good faith are understood as ‘my duty as a daughter/son’, and not emotional blackmail.

One victim said:

“Being in a situation where you have those you trust manipulating you to do something against your wishes is awful. You don’t want to upset them, and they try lots of emotional ways to get you to agree. It’s so hard to even see what’s happening when you’re in the middle of it. Their decisions ruined my life for a long while.”

Some victims are further threatened with saying no to the marriage akin to disobeying religious teachings. However, a Forced marriage can never be justified on religious grounds.

We have also seen cases where this lack of awareness has meant that some victims taken abroad under the guise of a ‘holiday’ find themselves back in Britain married to an individual they may have just met and are now responsible for bringing to the UK. Even at this stage, they do not realise it is not too late and that support is available to them. In 2013 alone the Forced Marriage Unit (FMU) gave advice or support related to a possible forced marriage in 1302 cases.

Faeeza Vaid, Executive Director of Muslim Women’s Network UK comments:

“The impact of being forced into marriage can be devastating for its victims. In agreement with Universal Human Rights, I believe that Forced marriages are unacceptable and illegal in Islam. And so the introduction of these criminal laws is not about scapegoating parents, individuals or communities, they are about standing firm for justice.

We need to continue raising awareness of this issue; to communities, to public service frontline workers, to policy influencers etc. These laws will only be effective if we put resources behind facilitating raising awareness and working together in a culturally appropriate and common sense manner. And we need to encourage victims not to suffer in silence. It is my personal hope that this law will act as a deterrent to those who think this abhorrent crime is acceptable.”

In response to the enquires MWNUK has received, MWNUK have previously raised concerns about this abuse and provided recommendations to Government consultations, we have run training workshops and events, and produced information factsheets [1] to raise awareness of this issue.

Thereby we believe that the new laws provide another option of protection for victims who can already go through a civil remedy of obtaining a Forced Marriage Protection Order through the family courts. The criminal laws may be found in the ‘Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill’ which criminalises forcing someone to marry, and provides a maximum penalty of seven years for committing a forced marriage offence. The ‘Breaching a Forced Marriage Protection Order’ provides a maximum penalty of five years for breach of a forced marriage protection order.

There are many organisations available to support those at risk of entering a forced marriage, or those already in a forced marriage. [2] The Forced Marriage Unit (FMU) is the main body between the Home Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) who provide advice and support on forced marriage cases. Their website (www.fco.gov.uk/forced-marriage )has useful information and resources. They may be contacted on 0207 0080151. MWNUK can also be contacted on 0121 236 9000 / 07415 206936. In an emergency dial 999.

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Notes:

    [1] MWNUK Forced Marriage Factsheet – http://mwnuk.co.uk/Forced_Marriage_7_factsheets.php

    [2] Some support organisations:

      Honour Network – This is a project run by Karma Nirvana. It supports both male and female victims of forced marriage and honour based violence.
      Website: www.karmanirvana.org.uk/honour-network
      Helpline: 0800 5999 247

      Forced Marriage.Net – This is a one stop website providing practical information and sources of advice.
      Website: www.forcedmarriage.net

      Forward – This is service is dedicated to advancing and safeguarding the health and rights of African girls and woman, in particular female genital mutilation and child marriage.
      Website: www.forwarduk.org.uk
      Telephone: 0208 860 4000

      Jan Trust- Offers a free and confidential helpline (0800 141 2994) to support victims who are in fear of going into a forced marriage or are already in one. Helpline staff provide culturally sensitive advice in Urdu, Punjabi and English.
      Websites: www.jantrust.org / www.againstforcedmarriage.org

      Amina – Muslim Women’s Helpline – Based in Scotland.
      Website: www.mwrc.org.uk
      Telephone: 0808 801 0301 (Mon-Fri 9.30am-5pm)

      Practical Solutions – Ministry of Justice approved specialist forced marriage advisors and practitioners based in the north West, working with victims/potential victims, communities and service providers. Practical Solutions work nationally and internationally.
      Website: www.practical-solutions.info
      Telephone: 0844 879 3129 / 07791 90497

      NSPCC Child Protection Helpline. – This is a free 24 hour helpline provides
      information, advice, and counseling to anyone concerned about a child at risk of abuse.
      Website: www.nspcc.org.uk
      Telephone: 0808 800 5000

    About MWNUK

    The Muslim Women’s Network UK is the only national Muslim women’s organisation in Britain. It is an independent network of women across the UK that shares knowledge, connects the voices, and promotes the needs of diverse Muslim women. Further information on the network can be found at: www.mwnuk.co.uk

Press Release at http://us7.campaign-archive2.com/?u=14513de99dac8d5f78b2163ec&id=5664a27c0e

June 20, 2014

Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation welcomes new law making forced marriage a criminal offence

On Monday, 16 June 2014, forced marriage becomes a self-standing criminal offence in England and Wales and in Scotland punishable by up to 7 years in prison. At the same time, in England and Wales it also becomes a criminal offence to breach a Forced Marriage Protection Order, in line with Scotland where this is already the case.

The Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKWRO), which represents women and girls from Middle Eastern, North African and Afghan communities, has been at the forefront of the campaign to criminalise Forced Marriage across the UK over the last decade, is celebrating this crucial step forward in the movement to end forced marriage.

Diana Nammi, founder and Executive Director of IKWRO says;

We have campaigned long and hard for the criminalisation of forced marriage, which equates to slavery, for a number of years because this is what the women that we represent tell us they want. Criminalisation makes it absolutely clear to everyone that forced marriage is not tolerated in the UK. The absence of a specific criminal offence thus far has undermined the movement to end forced marriage. Criminalisation is a crucial deterrent; many of our clients have told us that if forced marriage had been criminalised when they were facing it, their families may not have gone ahead with it because they would have abided by the law.

The women and girls that we work with say that they want to know that the law is clearly on their side and that forced marriage is explicitly illegal. Those who have experienced forced marriage tell us that if they had been confident that the law was on their side when they were facing forced marriage, they would have felt empowered to seek help.

Some say that criminalisation will force the issue underground. But it is already a hidden issue and we must continue to work hard to change this. IKWRO are doing this, by working in schools and colleges. We are training all staff through inset says, influencing students who may be potential victims, perpetrators or have influence to prevent forced marriage of others, and we are reaching parents through school coffee mornings. But to ensure that everyone can be reached we need the government to get on board by making whole school education on this issue compulsory. We must see commitment from the Department of Education to ensure that the statutory guidelines on forced marriage and ‘honour’ based violence are embedded into safeguarding strategies, structures and procedures for all schools and colleges and for effective ongoing monitoring by Ofsted.

Our colleagues in Denmark at a charity called LOKK, tell us that since 2008 when forced marriage became a criminal offence there, the numbers of young people and professionals seeking help around the issue of forced marriage have soared. The same is already happening here in the UK; since the intention to criminalise forced marriage was announced by David Cameron on 8th June 2012, reporting has almost doubled. The same arguments were raised against criminalising marital rape but far from going underground, reporting has increased four-fold’.

With the new specific offence the law will be much clearer. It will be easier to for those at risk and also for people who have influence to prevent a forced marriage to tell perpetrators about. Criminalisation will also make it crystal clear to front-line professionals, such as teachers and social workers, that forced marriage is a serious safeguarding issue and that they must take action to ensure anyone at risk is safe. So now those at risk will be able have confidence that they will be taken seriously.

Some people have said that criminalising forced marriage will intensify negativity towards minority communities. IKWRO has repeatedly heard this argument made about all of our work raising awareness on all forms of ‘honour’ based violence. We have been told to be quiet about all negative issues within our communities. But we strongly disagree. We both represent and are largely made up of minority women and we must at the same time expose human rights abuses and fight racism; the two are not mutually exclusive. We believe that staying silent about human rights abuses faced by women and girls from minority communities is racist. By turning our back and allowing harmful practices such as forced marriage to continue unchallenged, we actually leave the community to face stigmatisation and discrimination. We must prioritise the safety of minority women and girls, we must protect their universal human rights and fight for equality.

Not only does criminalisation send a clear message within the UK, it also sends a clear message internationally, which is important because forced marriage is a global human rights issue.

Changing the law is a crucial step in the movement, but this alone will not end forced marriage. I call upon the government to implement a national strategy plan to address forced marriage. The plan must ensure:

    a) Effective training for all professionals working with the public, including the police, judges, health professionals and social services.

    b) Whole school education for students and all staff.

    c) Monitoring of prolonged absences by students and students not returning from holidays.

    d) That affected communities, including both potential perpetrators and potential victims are made aware of the changes in the law.

    e) A victim/survivor focussed approach to ensure they are fully protected and supported.

    f) Access to public funds for victims/ survivors.

    g) Provision within immigration law and procedures to permanently protect victims/survivors.

    h) Access to justice through legal aid for victims/survivors.

    i) Sustainable funding for specialist support organisations like IKWRO and for refuges.

Press Release at http://ikwro.org.uk/2014/06/welcomes-marriage-criminal/#more-2119

June 17, 2014