Forced marriage linked to suicide, conference is told

Oct 25, 2007, 15:29 GMT

London - A conference on forced marriage in London has heard harrowing accounts of coercion and violence from victims forced by parents and family to enter such relationships against their will.

Participants at the two-day conference, organized by Britain's Foreign Office in conjunction with the European Commission's Daphne Fund, heard that young Asian women living in Britain were being driven to suicide by the practice.

'We are dying a lot faster from suicide. The question I ask is this: are we being driven to commit suicide or is suicide covering up murder?' Jasvinder Sanghera told the conference.

Sanghera, from Derby, in central Britain, lost her sister, Robina, through suicide after the girl was taken out of school at the age of 15 and forced to marry a man her parents had lined up for her.

Sanghera, 42, whose family is originally from Punjab, in India, said statistics showed that there were up to 12 so-called honour-killings every year, where children who refuse to fulfil their family's demands are killed for shaming them.

Her sister had 'suffered horrific abuse - physical and mental' in her marriage, said Sanghera, but parents, community leaders and family had always urged her 'to make the marriage work.'

'Was she driven to commit suicide? I would say so. She set herself on fire and suffered 80-per-cent burns. I still hold people accountable for her death,' said Sanghera about her younger sister.

South Asian women living in Britain had a suicide rate two to three times above the average, she said.

Shanghera, who was disowned by her family after refusing to marry a man chosen for her, ran away from home at the age of 16. She has since become a campaigner for the Karma Nirvana support group which helps young men and women in similar situations.

The two-day conference, at Lancaster House in central London, also heard from one of the growing number of men affected by forced marriage.

Imran Rehman, 33, described how he was taken to Pakistan from his home in Birmingham, central Britain, when he was just 10, to become engaged to a girl - then 5 years old.

'I did not know what was happening, just what was going on around me which was a party. People were giving me money as a gift and hanging garlands around my neck. I can just remember this little girl sitting next to me with a wedding dress on,' he said.

It was not until he was 15, when his sister showed him pictures of the engagement party that Rehman realized the significance of the occasion.

His mother told him he had no choice and took him back to Pakistan for what was billed as a holiday. But two weeks of fun and sightseeing turned into a nightmare when he was woken one morning by his brother, drugged and then taken to a mosque, Rehman reported.

Then, still a teenager, he was 'shackled and locked up' for two weeks before he managed to escape and return to Britain. However, under more pressure from his mother, who pleaded from her hospital bed, he returned and the marriage still went ahead, but ended after a year.

His parents had since apologized for their actions, said Rehman, who has also joined the campaign group.

'Forced marriage is not our religion. It is an old tradition and it should be a criminal offence, not a civil one, so that families realize what they are doing is wrong,' said Rehman.

The British government has pledged to clamp down on the practice of forced marriages which fall under the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act, passed by parliament in July, 2007.

The conference heard that more than 90 per cent of cases involve women from South Asia, ranging from children as young as 8 to victims in their 50s.

Catholic countries including Italy, France and Ireland were also affected by the practice, the conference was told.

In Bradford, north-west Britain, some 200 girls were removed from the school registry each year because they had been taken abroad during holidays and not returned, the conference heard.

'Forced marriage is used as a tool to control behaviour and it is primarily against behaviour parents see as too westernized,' conference organizer Peter Abbott said.

'The levels of violence are incredibly high. Do not ever attempt to trivialize a forced marriage because it could end up in murder,' he warned.