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Uthman
03-25-2008, 09:07 AM
New legislation could help stop instances of forced marriage in Scotland, a Muslim group has said.

The Scottish-Islamic Foundation said civil powers in England allowed the courts to step in and help people.

Osama Saeed, the foundation chairman, has suggested legal sanctions in Scotland could act as a deterrent.

Mr Saeed urged a debate on the issue and said that under Islam it was clear that for a marriage to be valid both parties had to consent to it.

I don't see why criminality can't be an option on the table


Osama Saeed
Scottish-Islamic Foundation

He described forced marriages as being an "injustice perpetrated in many cases by people who happen to be Muslim and who originate from certain parts of the world where this does happen".

While he argued the number of forced marriages in this country was decreasing as attitudes changed, he said "effective legislation" would speed up this process.

Mr Saeed said: "I do wonder why offences such as rape have not been used to prosecute to date."

But he added: "Creating new legislation now though, to deal with the incidents of forced marriage that do exist, will act as a deterrent and send out a strong message that this violation of human rights will not be tolerated.

"There should be a debate about this in Scotland. I don't see why criminality can't be an option on the table, with it being left to the victim whether or not to press charges, but if not still get the help they need."

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Uthman
03-28-2008, 03:11 PM
Forced marriages disgrace Islam
Ziauddin Sardar

The first step to dealing with honour killings in the UK is to criminalise forced marriage.

According to official figures, up to 17,000 women in Britain are subjected to honour-related kidnapping, sexual assault, beatings and murder every year. A new report by the Centre for Social Cohesion suggests these figures underestimate the true extent of honour-based violence. And what is even more worrying is that this crime is not limited to older, first- generation immigrants. Honour killings are now also being perpetrated, according to the report, by second and third generations of immigrants. Parents are passing on the customs they brought with them to their children.

Most cases of honour killing in Britain, such as the murder of Banaz Mahmod, involve Muslims. Twenty-year-old Banaz was killed because she refused to abide by a forced marriage. Her body was discovered in Birmingham in 2006; she had been raped and tortured by men hired by her uncle to kill her. Her father, who had unsuccessfully tried to kill her earlier, her uncle and one of her killers were sentenced to 60 years in total for her murder. Before Banaz, there was the case of Shafilea Ahmed, murdered in 2003, and before her a string of other unfortunates. Hardly surprising that, in the minds of some, honour killing and Islam go together.

In reality, honour killings are a direct outcome of forced marriage and have nothing to do with Islam. Indeed, one of the first acts of the Prophet Muhammad was to condemn and forbid such practices. In Islam, honour is connected with virtue, with righteous behaviour, obligations to one's parents and the elderly, good works and community development. It is all about human dignity and how that dignity should be upheld.

For many Muslims, however, Islamic ideals are often subservient to tribal custom. Honour killings and forced marriages are tribal practices. Among certain tribes in Asia, honour is asso ciated with women: izzat, as honour is called in Urdu, is quite literally located on the female body. Thus, women have to be guarded, protected and passed on to another member of the tribe. A woman dishonours her family and tribe if her body is violated - even by force. The shame can be cleansed only by killing the body in question.

Such primitively brutal ideas are not uncommon among British Muslims hailing from tribal areas of India, Pakistan and the Middle East. British Asians perpetuate tribal customs through what is known as the biradari system. This system, much in evidence in Asian communities in the Midlands, combines caste and honour with notions of blind loyalty to the clan. To guard the honour of a clan, marriages take place strictly within a biradari. These are not marriages of arrangement by mutual consent, but forced marriages where one partner is coerced into a union - sometimes both.

The first step to dealing with honour killings is to criminalise forced marriage. The Home Office is supposed to be drawing up an action plan to tackle these killings and improve police response, but before anything else we need to prevent victims from becoming victims. Making forced marriage illegal will send a strong message to those who maintain this obnoxious tribal custom that it has no place in contemporary Britain. It will also encourage potential victims to come forward and report the crime.

There is equally a need, I think, for a national strategy to identify potential victims. Schools, for example, ought to be able to recognise which girls are most likely to be victims of forced marriage by their background. Airport staff should be able to spot girls who are being forcibly carted off to India, Pakistan or Bangladesh to be married off to biradari cousins. The police must be able to offer potential victims adequate protection from any retribution.

Ultimately, honour killing is a conceptual phenomenon, and to beat this loathsome practice we need to undermine the very concept of tribal honour. The notion that honour has anything to do with the female body should be erased by the basic education of every Briton of Asian or Middle Eastern heritage. Tribal practices associated with honour bring not honour to biradari, clan, family and Islam, but disgrace.

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Uthman
03-28-2008, 03:14 PM
:sl:

format_quote Originally Posted by Osman
Before Banaz, there was the case of Shafilea Ahmed, murdered in 2003, and before her a string of other unfortunates. Hardly surprising that, in the minds of some, honour killing and Islam go together.
Shafilea Ahmed was actually a friend of a friend, though I never actually knew her. I'm just saying; it's a small world, isn't it. She is buried in a cemetery not too far from my house.

May Allah have mercy on her.

:w:
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IbnAbdulHakim
03-28-2008, 03:15 PM
Ameen ye subhanAllah i saw a boy i knew in secondary school on the papers the other day, he got shot in brixton. subhanAllah very small world...


btw about the forced marriage, lol it actually needs a debate? isnt it clear that its haram...
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IbnAbdulHakim
03-28-2008, 03:18 PM
whats shocking is, i use to play football with that boy, we use to be like rivals in football (our class and his), i shared my lunch with him... and now his shot

subhanAllah life is amazing sometimes...
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Uthman
03-28-2008, 03:18 PM
:sl:

format_quote Originally Posted by IbnAbdulHakim
Ameen ye subhanAllah i saw a boy i knew in secondary school on the papers the other day, he got shot in brixton. subhanAllah very small world...
Subhaan'Allah. :cry:

format_quote Originally Posted by IbnAbdulHakim
btw about the forced marriage, lol it actually needs a debate? isnt it clear that its haram...
Indeed, it is clear. The debate is as to whether it should be declared illegal. The Muslim group is saying that it should be.

:w:
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IbnAbdulHakim
03-28-2008, 03:19 PM
inshaAllah, i hope its declared illegal as soon as possible.


inshaAllaah
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------
03-28-2008, 03:20 PM
:salamext:

^ I agree.
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Ebtisweetsam
03-28-2008, 10:10 PM
ILLEGAL....no ifs, no buts. :exhausted
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FatimaAsSideqah
03-28-2008, 10:18 PM
As Salaam Alaykum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuhu

In Sharia Law any marriage that is forced or false in any way is null and void. It is not a proper marriage. Forced marriage is totally forbidden in Islam. Forced marriage is not at all the same thing as arranged marriage and it is clearly 100% haraam. Full stop.
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Fishman
03-28-2008, 10:55 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by IbnAbdulHakim
inshaAllah, i hope its declared illegal as soon as possible.


inshaAllaah
:sl:
The question shouldn't be 'should we make it illegal?' but rather 'why on earth isn't it illegal?'
:w:
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Uthman
03-29-2008, 01:18 PM
Muslim Leaders Speak out Against Forced Marriage

The opposition of prominent Islamic scholars to forced marriage is an important step in the fight for gender equality in the Muslim world.

In traditional societies like India, arranged marriage is as inherent to the social fabric of the nation as is the institution of marriage itself. This is why, often, choosing one's own partner constitutes the worst form of rebellion against a parent, and, for women, the urn-bearers of the family reputation, a choice that crosses the line from rebellion to dishonor upon the family.

Even celluloid love stories of the past decade have shown a shift from the rebellious love stories of the eighties to more accommodating, docile renditions where instead of challenging the system -- the parents and the arranged marriage -- you go along with the system, embracing 'tradition' in all its splendor. But unfortunately, reel life has not aped real, or vice versa, which is evident in the numerous violent incidents against couples who chose to challenge the traditional shackles of marriage and the unwritten code for 'acceptable' alliances. These unacceptable alliances have been met with violence against the couple, whether it is the forceful confinement of the girl by her own family, threats of (and actual) violence against the couple, panchayat decrees ordering the stripping of the woman or female relatives of the ostracized couple, murders and suicides, or murder in the garb of suicide. And this is a trend that appears to be as common in urban as in rural India -- and even overseas, as evidenced in kidnappings and killings linked to marriages amongst the expatriate Asian community.

In the Indian context (and the larger South Asian context of countries that are similarly traditional), with women in general and girls in particular hardly enjoying the space to make life changing decisions themselves, it is hardly surprising that curbs on a woman's right to choose whom to marry manifest themselves in a multitude of ways, irrespective of the religion they conform to. So while child marriages are brazenly practiced, marriages to pay off family debts do exist, forced marriages are employed to prevent girls from marrying the men of their choice, widows are coerced in to marriages with the brother-in-law (or other male relatives) or into polyandrous marriagesand such seemingly endless situations, women -- viewed as either the husband's or father's property -- do not have the choice to make decisions about their own marriage.

Religion, culture, value systems, and the abundant use of prevailing customs in many parts of the country thwart the protection of this right of marriage by choice. And the noise is not always only about inter-religious marriages but even over marriages that violate caste or sub-caste distinctions and specific cultural, regional sanctions. Additionally, those wanting to get out of a bad marriage through divorce invite further violence not only from the marital home but often from the paternal side too. And even as 'honor' crimes occur against women, honor killings themselves are not listed as a crime against women and hence continue unabated in various forms and disguises as an inherent part of patriarchal structures.

It is in this context that Muslim bodies and Islamic scholars at a meeting in the national capital of New Delhi unanimously decided that "in Islam, the girl has every right to marry the boy of her choice and her parents cannot impose their decision on her since the Sharia (Muslim law) gives the girl right to choose her future husband." This meeting, attended, amongst others, by members of All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), and Dar-ul-Uloom Deoband under the banner of Islamic Fiqh Academy (IFA) made truly a landmark decision -- even if it remains to be tested.

It was further reiterated that Islam does not condone forced marriages and if a girl is forced in to such an alliance she has every right to declare her marriage null and void "because such a marriage will also be against Sharia."

While the Sharia law decision is not legally binding, and Sharia is open to interpretation, the decision is an important and progressive way of looking at women's rights within the Muslim context. It has not been disputed as yet -- though that has mostly to do with its non-binding nature and the fact that it was within the context of India.

What makes this particularly important is that not only are girls (irrespective of their religious faiths) married off very early, but they are also often married to men much older than they are. No matter the age of the girl's husband, it's an extremely dangerous situation: the girl's education is aborted (for those who even get an education) and they are thrust in to the adult demands of a marriage when their bodies might not be ready.

With the long-standing, rigid, social demands for women in place, any challenge to them is bound to extract its price. With the denial of choice for women disguised in the elaborate garb of tradition, it is decisions like this -- using the Sharia to actually hand over agency to women especially with regard to choices that impact their bodily autonomy and their life -- that might prove to be the most sustainable and have the deepest impact.



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S_87
03-29-2008, 02:01 PM
oh yes it should be made illegal but one thing must be clear. forced marriages is not something 'muslims' do, hindus and sikhs also have forced marriages on a large scale
the practice a 'cultural' practice should be stamped out and it should be made clear it is NOT a 'religious' practice
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AvarAllahNoor
03-29-2008, 05:33 PM
It's a cultural thing. Sikhs, Chinese, Hindus, Muslims, Turks, etc all do it. Even Russians, if they don't agree with a person marrying outside of religion, culture, caste, colour.
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Uthman
04-04-2009, 02:10 PM
Judges back Muslim groups in condemnation of forced marriage

Senior family judges have joined Muslim leaders in condemning forced marriage as intolerable and a gross abuse of human rights.

Sir Mark Potter, Britain’s most senior family judge, and Mr Justice Munby, a High Court judge, said the challenge was to spread the message that forced marriage was not acceptable, and pledged the courts’ backing to prevent such marriages.

The judges were speaking at a seminar on forced marriages at the London Muslim Centre in Whitechapel, East London, where four key Muslim organisations — the Islamic Sharia Council, the Council of Mosques, the Islamic Cultural Centre and the East London Mosque — said that forced marriage was contrary to Islam and not to be condoned.

Both judges drew a distinction between forced and arranged marriages, saying that the latter were lawful, were accepted in many societies and should be respected.
Each year more than 250 cases of forced marriage are reported to the Forced Marriage Unit run by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Mr Justice Munby said: “Forced marriage is intolerable. It is a gross abuse of human rights. It is a form of domestic violence that dehumanises people by denying them their right to choose how to live their lives.”

Where courts could intervene in time, they would make orders preventing the “marriage” and stop a victim being taken abroad to be married. Where the victim had already been taken abroad, the courts would make orders to ensure that the victim was repatriated to this country, he said.

Protective orders might then be needed to protect the victim from retaliation by her or his oppressors. The judge added that criminal offences may apply in cases of forced marriage. There were also civil remedies.

The deputy secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain started a legal action against Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary, yesterday. Daud Abdullah is seeking damages for defamation after Ms Blears severed official links with the Council over his signing of a declaration that she believes advocates attacks on British military personnel and Israel. He firmly rejects this.

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