February 10, 2008
17,000 attacks on women every year
New estimates say that as many as 17,000 women could be the victims of so-called 'honour' crimes - 35 times the previous official figures. Now minister say they will step up the battle against forced marriages. What are your views and experiences of this?
Click here to read the article in full
Posted at 01:36 AM in This Britain Permalink
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HM Government should refuse entry to the UK (and seek to persuade Brussels to extend the refusal to all EU countries) of any foreign born spouse whose marriage occurred abroad. I am sure entry into the UK is a strong motivation for many forced marriages, often with the spouse paying the parents in law. HMG should also resume checking all people leaving the UK, not (as of now) just the arrivals.
Posted by: Laurence Hallewell February 10, 2008 at 06:02 AM
Honour. Beating a woman, murdering your own child, forcing your own flesh and blood into such despair that they "opt" for suicide. This is Honour as ultimately defined by religion in 2008. The barbarism and savagery of it would leave even Geoffrey Chaucer gob-smacked! That such a sizable proportion of society sees this base-inhumanity as truly honourable beggars belief. The solution, if there is one, must include a change of mindset, but in the meantime there must be dedicated policing and heavy sentencing for the criminals who perpetrate these acts.
Posted by: Lorcán Bermingham February 10, 2008 at 06:10 AM
RE: Britain's hidden scandal
Why do some of the names listed on the list of victims seem to be of the Sikh faith, is the Independent trying to mislead its readers?
Posted by: Anonymous February 10, 2008 at 07:05 AM
The government has aided and abetted this state through its refusal to stop arranged marriages in the UK and also the practice of importing foreign spouses. It has allowed a creeping rise of muslim demands to lead to the conclusion that parts of sharia law are unavoidable in Britain. Why, because it already exists. It places men firmly in control and confirms the legitimacy to some degree honour violence and crime.It is laughable that the socialists will only now step up the battle precisely when they are again found out. Why now why not in 1997? We all know the answer to that one.
Posted by: Richard, Nottingham February 10, 2008 at 07:24 AM
The level of ignorance and cruelty amongst followers of the Islamic faith is just beyond belief. The Archbishop of Canterbury is a fool.
Posted by: Frederick February 10, 2008 at 08:30 AM
Arranged marriages are different from forced marraiges and forced marraiges are happening in Hindu, Muslim and Sikh families. No one should be forced into marraige like that and as far as i know no religion asks for people to be forced into marraige.This is not honour and this is not religion. This is men and sometimes women going on a power trip and wanting to control things.
Posted by: Mary February 10, 2008 at 10:43 AM
On matters of this kind, Brits look to their spiritual leaders.
And Archbishop Rowan Of La-La-Land is on hand to tell us that violence against women is perfectly acceptable. At last Milord Bishop has found common cause with another faith rooted in mysogyny, medieval bigotry and buggaboo.
Posted by: Neil McGowan February 10, 2008 at 01:16 PM
A video has been produced in the US by the David Horowitz Freedom Centre.
This is NOT for children or the faint-hearted. It IS shocking but this is the road that we in Britain seem to be going down. Elements of everything you see in this video already happen over here. Today, most of it is illegal... but THEIR todays are OUR tomorrows.
http://www.terrorismawareness.org/videos/108/the-violent-oppression-of-women-in-islam/
Posted by: Caroline February 10, 2008 at 04:23 PM
The video posted above by Caroline is the tip of a very nasty iceberg, and illustrates what the BNP have been telling us for years while the government and its confederates have been telling us its all lies.Previously a Tory, I have become totally disillusioned with the main parties, and along, I suspect, with a great many others, find I have no other choice but to support the BNP as the only chance we have left of recovering our country and returning to civilisation.
Posted by: Arthur February 10, 2008 at 04:58 PM
This is trash journalism from the Independent. Using an image of woman with niqab is just appealing to prejudice.
Just more rubbish to justify white racism. Just read the comments.
Posted by: Justice February 10, 2008 at 05:29 PM
Once Britain starts to deport any family involved in these "honour" killings or attacks, removing any British residency or citizenship rights as well, these horrific practices may stop. If these unpleasant creatures believe that murder is acceptable to save the family's reputation, they must be sent back to their country of origin where others of their ilk reside.
Posted by: Sheona Hutcheson February 10, 2008 at 05:47 PM
On a slightly different yet related note, in regards the story of inbreeding in the UK Pakistani community. One recalls that in the 17th Century, the Great Moghul Emperor Akbar admonished against the marrying of cousins: in his opinion, it was not condusive to ardour and passion within a marriage.
Posted by: Rami Samara February 10, 2008 at 07:43 PM
Sloppy journalism from the IOS today. The 17000 figure in the headline is pure conjecture which fails to stand up to any real examination. Seemingly, if a white man hits his wife its domestic abuse, if it's a brown man - it's now an honour crime?
Posted by: dissapointed February 10, 2008 at 07:51 PM
This article exudes sheer prejudice and discrimation feeding on the latest flavour of the day: Islamophobia. This seems to be on ongoing theme in the (sic) Independent. Carry on then, you are just confirming that times have not changed and raciscm is alive and growing in Britain.
Posted by: Malcolm X February 10, 2008 at 08:09 PM
I just wrote the following letter to the editors:
---------------------
Dear Independent on Sunday editors,
The cover of today’s paper was, frankly, shocking. It featured a picture of a veiled Muslim woman, and the headline “17,000 attacks on women every year”.
Upon reading the article, it transpires that the figure of 17,000 was a casual extrapolation - based on 500 reported attacks, and the assumption that it takes about 35 attacks for a woman to report domestic violence - and is certainly not based on any kind of substantial survey. Why put it in the headline?
More worryingly still, no mention was made of the domestic violence - including killings - that is *not* linked to ethnic minorties and their religious laws. According to the Home Office website[1], two women a week are killed by a current or former male partner, and one in four women are victims of domestic violence in their lifetimes. An incident is reported to the police around once a minute; multiplying that figure by 35 would give a very alarming headline.
The IoS’ front cover strongly hints at an association between Islam or Muslims and domestic violence, and the article does nothing to dispell this idea. This is dangerous and offensive for two reasons. It trivialises the crimes committed against women outside of the restrictive “honour” category, and it contributes to the normalisation of Islamophobic racism in Britain today. These are both phenomena that, in my view, the IoS would do better to challenge than to reinforce.
Please consider both your front covers and your coverage of domestic violence more carefully in future.
Sincerely,
Dave Sewell
[1: http://www.crimereduction.homeoffice.gov.uk/dv/dv01.htm]
Posted by: Dave Sewell February 10, 2008 at 08:47 PM
In this thread both the BNP and Horowitz's imbecilic rantings are supported, is this the audience the IoS is looking to cultivate? Does the Daily Express know you're after its readers? Violence against women is society wide sadly (how *hilarious* that Stella Artois is known as 'wife beater') and honour killings are not confined to Muslims or representative yet in the presentation that is what is implied. A bad misstep.
Posted by: RickB February 10, 2008 at 08:55 PM
mp and media are carp they be going away this.
Posted by: kevin February 10, 2008 at 09:28 PM
This new announcement from the police that 17,000 Asians are subjected to honor violence begs a very simple question - Just what the hell have the police been doing whilst these crimes have been committed against the vulnerable. All of these examples are crimes of varying severity and I can see no reason for not acting except for Labour PC Multiculturalism that brushes these issues under the carpet. Nulab consistently announce new studies into possible new laws to tackle many types of crime when all thats needed is a rigorous enforcement of existing law. Yobs on the street, wife beaters, underage sex and marriage, polygamy, the list is endless but all can be dealt with under existing law no matter who commits the crime. Some of these crimes however are purely the preserve of the Muslim community and should be added to other crimes like the race hate material found in many mosques. Go into any church in any country in the EU and you will NOT find a single piece of race hate propaganda but far too many so called Islamic places of worship in Britain are overflowing with videos & books inciting violence against their host country. Its time for moderate Muslims (assuming there are some) to stand up against the extremists in their midst and expel them otherwise the majority in Britain will tar you all with the same brush. The balls in your court, its time for you all to act now.
Posted by: Mike February 10, 2008 at 09:39 PM
well done the independent and daily mail best news page so far.
Posted by: kevin February 10, 2008 at 10:19 PM
First the brainless wifi scare stories and now this sloppy racist hate piece. It is really sad to see the independent going down the sensationalist trash route :(
Posted by: ex-ios February 11, 2008 at 01:34 PM
http://ios.typepad.com/ios/2008/02/17000-attacks-o.html#comments
AMORAL.MLL.FI.
11 Şubat 2008 Pazartesi
Leading article: No decent law allows coercion
Leading article: No decent law allows coercion
Sunday, 10 February 2008
"You can barely use the word sharia because of what people associate with it." How right Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, turned out to be. The idea of finding "a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law", of which he spoke in a BBC Radio 4 interview last week, is one that triggered a reaction not wholly related to his actual words. But if he knew that sharia was a word susceptible to misunderstanding, surely he should have known how important it was for him to be clear.
It was no use Dr Williams protesting that he was not talking about the "brutal and inhuman and unjust" forms of sharia as practised in Saudi Arabia or countries where women are stoned for adultery if they are raped. The problem is that, even if we take out the stoning, the chopping off of hands and the "honour" killing, a code of law that claims its authority from long-standing religious tradition is likely to be reactionary in general and restrictive of the rights of women in particular. Dr Williams acknowledged at one point in his lecture that "questions of the status of women and converts" in sharia were "neuralgic". But if he were not talking about that kind of sharia, it was unclear what he was saying.
Thus he allowed many people to read a subtext to his words, which is that there is "one law for us and another law for them". It is a widespread sentiment, tinged with racism, and anyone in a position of leadership ought to be careful not to provide unwarranted support for it.
Nor is it any use Dr Williams's supporters – or, more accurately, those people of goodwill who sought to understand what it was that the Archbishop might have been trying to say – pointing out that some religious courts are allowed to arbitrate on questions of marriage among orthodox Jews. The point is that no special amendment has been made to UK law to allow these courts to function. There can be no objection in principle to religious authorities that set themselves up as arbitration or mediation services; the question is whether their clients take part on the basis of informed consent.
Indeed, as the Archbishop said in his interview: "It would be quite wrong to say that we could ever license a system of law for some community which gave people no right of appeal, no way of exercising the rights that are guaranteed to them as citizens." That would seem to go to the heart of the issue. The worry about religious courts – Jewish or Muslim – is that they resist equal rights for women, and it is difficult to define where voluntary submission by women ends and coercion begins. Instead of proposing further "accommodation" of religious law, we should be more robust in policing that boundary.
This is the same issue in forced marriages, which, as we reveal today, have been massively under-reported in this country. The scandal of "honour" killings is the visible extreme end of a subculture which oppresses women, and which draws on the authority of religion, as Joan Smith points out today. This situation has come about partly because of a well-meaning attempt to accommodate the cultures of immigrants, of which Dr Williams's lecture seems to be a part. Recently, significant liberal voices, such as that of Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, have insisted that there must be limits to this ill-defined multiculturalism. What was remarkable about the Archbishop's intervention was that he did not engage in this argument at all.
So let us do it for him. The law in a liberal democracy should apply to everyone equally, as far as possible, with exceptions in only the most difficult cases for conscientious objectors. That includes Sikhs riding motorcycles, or doctors who refuse to carry out abortions. It should not include turning a blind eye to forced marriages, or to the use of arranged marriages as an immigration scam; nor should it include paying state benefit to multiple wives.
In each case, the current of thinking, even among liberals and among liberal British Muslims, is away from the direction suggested so nebulously by Dr Williams. The Association of Chief Police Officers is taking "honour" killing and forced marriages more seriously than ever. Ann Cryer, the left-wing MP for Keighley, has been harrying a government that appears to lack any sense of urgency over arranged marriages that amount to a form of people-trafficking from Pakistan.
On every issue where there is tension between religion and state, the Government needs to be encouraged by defenders of liberal democracy to insist on the primacy of universal rights. The Archbishop was well-intentioned but unwise to allow himself to be allied to the pre-Enlightenment elements of another faith by trying to go in the opposite direction.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-no-.htmlnt-law-allows-coercion-780408.html
Sunday, 10 February 2008
"You can barely use the word sharia because of what people associate with it." How right Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, turned out to be. The idea of finding "a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law", of which he spoke in a BBC Radio 4 interview last week, is one that triggered a reaction not wholly related to his actual words. But if he knew that sharia was a word susceptible to misunderstanding, surely he should have known how important it was for him to be clear.
It was no use Dr Williams protesting that he was not talking about the "brutal and inhuman and unjust" forms of sharia as practised in Saudi Arabia or countries where women are stoned for adultery if they are raped. The problem is that, even if we take out the stoning, the chopping off of hands and the "honour" killing, a code of law that claims its authority from long-standing religious tradition is likely to be reactionary in general and restrictive of the rights of women in particular. Dr Williams acknowledged at one point in his lecture that "questions of the status of women and converts" in sharia were "neuralgic". But if he were not talking about that kind of sharia, it was unclear what he was saying.
Thus he allowed many people to read a subtext to his words, which is that there is "one law for us and another law for them". It is a widespread sentiment, tinged with racism, and anyone in a position of leadership ought to be careful not to provide unwarranted support for it.
Nor is it any use Dr Williams's supporters – or, more accurately, those people of goodwill who sought to understand what it was that the Archbishop might have been trying to say – pointing out that some religious courts are allowed to arbitrate on questions of marriage among orthodox Jews. The point is that no special amendment has been made to UK law to allow these courts to function. There can be no objection in principle to religious authorities that set themselves up as arbitration or mediation services; the question is whether their clients take part on the basis of informed consent.
Indeed, as the Archbishop said in his interview: "It would be quite wrong to say that we could ever license a system of law for some community which gave people no right of appeal, no way of exercising the rights that are guaranteed to them as citizens." That would seem to go to the heart of the issue. The worry about religious courts – Jewish or Muslim – is that they resist equal rights for women, and it is difficult to define where voluntary submission by women ends and coercion begins. Instead of proposing further "accommodation" of religious law, we should be more robust in policing that boundary.
This is the same issue in forced marriages, which, as we reveal today, have been massively under-reported in this country. The scandal of "honour" killings is the visible extreme end of a subculture which oppresses women, and which draws on the authority of religion, as Joan Smith points out today. This situation has come about partly because of a well-meaning attempt to accommodate the cultures of immigrants, of which Dr Williams's lecture seems to be a part. Recently, significant liberal voices, such as that of Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, have insisted that there must be limits to this ill-defined multiculturalism. What was remarkable about the Archbishop's intervention was that he did not engage in this argument at all.
So let us do it for him. The law in a liberal democracy should apply to everyone equally, as far as possible, with exceptions in only the most difficult cases for conscientious objectors. That includes Sikhs riding motorcycles, or doctors who refuse to carry out abortions. It should not include turning a blind eye to forced marriages, or to the use of arranged marriages as an immigration scam; nor should it include paying state benefit to multiple wives.
In each case, the current of thinking, even among liberals and among liberal British Muslims, is away from the direction suggested so nebulously by Dr Williams. The Association of Chief Police Officers is taking "honour" killing and forced marriages more seriously than ever. Ann Cryer, the left-wing MP for Keighley, has been harrying a government that appears to lack any sense of urgency over arranged marriages that amount to a form of people-trafficking from Pakistan.
On every issue where there is tension between religion and state, the Government needs to be encouraged by defenders of liberal democracy to insist on the primacy of universal rights. The Archbishop was well-intentioned but unwise to allow himself to be allied to the pre-Enlightenment elements of another faith by trying to go in the opposite direction.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-no-.htmlnt-law-allows-coercion-780408.html
Joan Smith: British women are already suffering from Islamic law
Joan Smith: British women are already suffering from Islamic law
The Archbishop of Canterbury says sharia courts could rule on family issues, but this is exactly where they can cause most harm
Sunday, 10 February 2008
There are moments when public debate in Britain appears to take place in a vacuum. As the Archbishop of Canterbury gave a convincing impression yesterday of a man suffering the torments of the Inquisition, the debate was moving away from his actual observations about Islamic law, sharia, to the question of his fitness (or otherwise) to hold his office. Rowan Williams claimed that his remarks about the unavoidability of adopting some aspects of sharia in this country had been misunderstood, prompting an interesting response from his critics: the cleric was a brilliant man, they said, but his utterances were simply too opaque for hoi polloi (especially the media) to comprehend. This prompts an obvious question – if no one understands what the Archbishop is saying, how do they know how intelligent he is? – but it also diverted attention from something much more important. Williams's clarification of his remarks seemed to suggest that he wasn't calling for a parallel legal system for Muslims, more a recognition of something that is already happening. Yet there has been a strange reluctance to ask a real expert who has seen the way sharia operates in this country: someone like Rahni Binjie, project manager of Roshni Asian Women's Aid in Nottingham.
Binjie was interviewed in a major study of honour-based crime published by the Centre for Social Cohesion last week, and argued that Islamic leaders are reluctant to grant divorces to women who have children. "This is because the community sees the family structure as being of so much importance," she said. Her colleague Tanisha Jnagel said that the Islamic Sharia Council hears both sides but relies on religious texts to decide whether a divorce should be granted: "In our experience, this isn't going to result in a solution which is fair for the woman." According to the study, Crimes of the Community: Honour-Based Violence in the UK by James Brandon and Salam Hafez, women are being forced to stay in violent marriages as a result. "Many women from the Muslim and Sikh communities report that they have difficulties gaining religious divorces from their respective religious leaders," they say.
This will come as no surprise to Britain's agunot, or "chained women", who have been denied a religious divorce in Orthodox Jewish courts; even if they obtain a civil divorce, they are still married under Jewish law and any children they have with new partners will be mamzer, or illegitimate. Last week an Islamic Council in Leyton, east London, revealed that it had handled more than 7,000 divorces, but did not say what proportion was refused.
As soon as you look at the actual operation of religious law in this country, the picture looks less rosy. Even if the Archbishop didn't have in mind barbaric punishments such as stoning women to death for adultery, there is plenty of evidence that sharia courts are a means of consolidating patriarchal power in societies where Muslim women have begun to demand the same rights as men. The Department for Work and Pensions recently made an astonishing decision to pay state benefits to Muslim men for each of their wives, as long as the marriages were contracted legally abroad. Bigamy is illegal in Britain and the spectacle of the Government colluding in the practice of polygyny – not polygamy, for Muslim women cannot have four husbands – is a signal that ministers are losing their moral compass on the subject of women's rights.
We are only just beginning to realise the extent of violence against women from ethnic minorities. Last week, Commander Steve Allen, who leads for the Association of Chief Police Officers on honour-based violence, gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee. Responding to a question about whether forced marriage and "honour" crimes are under-reported in this country, Allen responded with a single word: "Massively". He believes the real level of violence might be 35 times higher than the number of cases (around 500) reported each year to the police and the Foreign Office forced marriage unit.
If a woman is running away from her parents or a violent husband, mosques and sharia courts are not the obvious place for her to turn to get justice. The Centre for Social Cohesion study contains a startling insight into attitudes in one British mosque, reported by Mohamed Baleela, a team leader at the Domestic Violence Intervention Project in Hammersmith, west London. "Last time I talked about marital rape in a mosque," he said, "I nearly got beaten up. Because we said that the law makes it illegal to rape your wife, someone got up and hit me because he was ignorant of the law."
There is an argument, and it is a compelling one, that we should all be subject to the same laws. People who look favourably on a parallel system of religious courts for civil matters claim they do no harm if all parties consent to their use. This, of course, is the crux of the matter: how can we know that women from traditional and religious families have given consent when they are under huge pressure from relatives? They may be threatened into accepting the authority of a religious court, just as hundreds of young women (and some young men) are coerced into getting married against their will.
The few cases that hit the headlines are unbearably tragic: 17-year-old Shafilea Ahmed from Warrington, Cheshire, drank bleach when she was confronted with an unwanted suitor in Pakistan, and later disappeared from her parents' home. Her body was found five months later in a river in Cumbria and a coroner ruled last month that the student had been the victim of a "very vile murder".
Another young woman, 20-year-old Banaz Mahmod from south London, was raped and murdered by Kurdish hit men hired by her father and uncle when she left an unhappy, arranged marriage and fell in love with another man. The notion that young women like Shafilea Ahmed and Banaz Mahmod would be helped by an expansion of Islamic law in this country is laughable; indeed the European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2003 that sharia is incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy and European values. Secular law protects people's right to practise their religion, but it also protects them from aspects of their faith which are unjust and oppressive.
Only someone as out of touch with modern Britain as the Archbishop of Canterbury could possibly think otherwise, or line up so willingly with the forces of reaction. Just because someone looks like an Old Testament prophet, he doesn't have to think and speak like one as well.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/joan-smith/joan-smith-british-women-are-already-suffering-from-islamic-law-780407.html
The Archbishop of Canterbury says sharia courts could rule on family issues, but this is exactly where they can cause most harm
Sunday, 10 February 2008
There are moments when public debate in Britain appears to take place in a vacuum. As the Archbishop of Canterbury gave a convincing impression yesterday of a man suffering the torments of the Inquisition, the debate was moving away from his actual observations about Islamic law, sharia, to the question of his fitness (or otherwise) to hold his office. Rowan Williams claimed that his remarks about the unavoidability of adopting some aspects of sharia in this country had been misunderstood, prompting an interesting response from his critics: the cleric was a brilliant man, they said, but his utterances were simply too opaque for hoi polloi (especially the media) to comprehend. This prompts an obvious question – if no one understands what the Archbishop is saying, how do they know how intelligent he is? – but it also diverted attention from something much more important. Williams's clarification of his remarks seemed to suggest that he wasn't calling for a parallel legal system for Muslims, more a recognition of something that is already happening. Yet there has been a strange reluctance to ask a real expert who has seen the way sharia operates in this country: someone like Rahni Binjie, project manager of Roshni Asian Women's Aid in Nottingham.
Binjie was interviewed in a major study of honour-based crime published by the Centre for Social Cohesion last week, and argued that Islamic leaders are reluctant to grant divorces to women who have children. "This is because the community sees the family structure as being of so much importance," she said. Her colleague Tanisha Jnagel said that the Islamic Sharia Council hears both sides but relies on religious texts to decide whether a divorce should be granted: "In our experience, this isn't going to result in a solution which is fair for the woman." According to the study, Crimes of the Community: Honour-Based Violence in the UK by James Brandon and Salam Hafez, women are being forced to stay in violent marriages as a result. "Many women from the Muslim and Sikh communities report that they have difficulties gaining religious divorces from their respective religious leaders," they say.
This will come as no surprise to Britain's agunot, or "chained women", who have been denied a religious divorce in Orthodox Jewish courts; even if they obtain a civil divorce, they are still married under Jewish law and any children they have with new partners will be mamzer, or illegitimate. Last week an Islamic Council in Leyton, east London, revealed that it had handled more than 7,000 divorces, but did not say what proportion was refused.
As soon as you look at the actual operation of religious law in this country, the picture looks less rosy. Even if the Archbishop didn't have in mind barbaric punishments such as stoning women to death for adultery, there is plenty of evidence that sharia courts are a means of consolidating patriarchal power in societies where Muslim women have begun to demand the same rights as men. The Department for Work and Pensions recently made an astonishing decision to pay state benefits to Muslim men for each of their wives, as long as the marriages were contracted legally abroad. Bigamy is illegal in Britain and the spectacle of the Government colluding in the practice of polygyny – not polygamy, for Muslim women cannot have four husbands – is a signal that ministers are losing their moral compass on the subject of women's rights.
We are only just beginning to realise the extent of violence against women from ethnic minorities. Last week, Commander Steve Allen, who leads for the Association of Chief Police Officers on honour-based violence, gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee. Responding to a question about whether forced marriage and "honour" crimes are under-reported in this country, Allen responded with a single word: "Massively". He believes the real level of violence might be 35 times higher than the number of cases (around 500) reported each year to the police and the Foreign Office forced marriage unit.
If a woman is running away from her parents or a violent husband, mosques and sharia courts are not the obvious place for her to turn to get justice. The Centre for Social Cohesion study contains a startling insight into attitudes in one British mosque, reported by Mohamed Baleela, a team leader at the Domestic Violence Intervention Project in Hammersmith, west London. "Last time I talked about marital rape in a mosque," he said, "I nearly got beaten up. Because we said that the law makes it illegal to rape your wife, someone got up and hit me because he was ignorant of the law."
There is an argument, and it is a compelling one, that we should all be subject to the same laws. People who look favourably on a parallel system of religious courts for civil matters claim they do no harm if all parties consent to their use. This, of course, is the crux of the matter: how can we know that women from traditional and religious families have given consent when they are under huge pressure from relatives? They may be threatened into accepting the authority of a religious court, just as hundreds of young women (and some young men) are coerced into getting married against their will.
The few cases that hit the headlines are unbearably tragic: 17-year-old Shafilea Ahmed from Warrington, Cheshire, drank bleach when she was confronted with an unwanted suitor in Pakistan, and later disappeared from her parents' home. Her body was found five months later in a river in Cumbria and a coroner ruled last month that the student had been the victim of a "very vile murder".
Another young woman, 20-year-old Banaz Mahmod from south London, was raped and murdered by Kurdish hit men hired by her father and uncle when she left an unhappy, arranged marriage and fell in love with another man. The notion that young women like Shafilea Ahmed and Banaz Mahmod would be helped by an expansion of Islamic law in this country is laughable; indeed the European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2003 that sharia is incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy and European values. Secular law protects people's right to practise their religion, but it also protects them from aspects of their faith which are unjust and oppressive.
Only someone as out of touch with modern Britain as the Archbishop of Canterbury could possibly think otherwise, or line up so willingly with the forces of reaction. Just because someone looks like an Old Testament prophet, he doesn't have to think and speak like one as well.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/joan-smith/joan-smith-british-women-are-already-suffering-from-islamic-law-780407.html
Adopting sharia within British law would be 'disastrous', Lord Carey tells his successor as Archbishop
Adopting sharia within British law would be 'disastrous', Lord Carey tells his successor as Archbishop
By Ian GriggsSunday, 10 February 2008
The Archbishop of Canterbury's predecessor joined the chorus of criticism against him last night for his comments on Islamic law. George Carey accused Dr Rowan Williams of "overstating" the case for accommodating sharia. But he said that Dr Williams should not be forced to quit over his remarks.
"There can be no exceptions to the laws of our land, which have been so painfully honed by the struggle for democracy and human rights," Lord Carey wrote in the News of the World. "His conclusion that Britain will have to concede some place in law for aspects of sharia is a view I cannot share. His acceptance of some Muslim laws within British law would be disastrous."
However, Lord Carey also defended the Archbishop, saying: "This is not a matter upon which Dr Williams should resign. He has my full support."
The storm began on Thursday when Dr Williams said the adoption of certain aspects of Islamic law seemed "unavoidable" and that the UK had to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens did not relate to the British legal system.
Dr Williams preached a memorial and thanksgiving service for the Cambridge divinity professor Charles Moule yesterday – after which he was greeted by both applause and boos – but said nothing about the row. He is thought likely to raise the issue during his address to the General Synod in London today.
Several members of the Synod, the Church of England's ruling body, have called for him to step down. Colonel Edward Armitstead, a Synod member from the diocese of Bath and Wells, said: "I don't think he's got the gift of leadership that the church needs." And Alison Ruoff, a member from London, accused him of vacillation and weakness. "As a leader of the Christian community, he is a disaster."
But the Right Reverend Stephen Lowe, the Bishop of Hulme, said he was disgusted at the knee-jerk reaction to Dr Williams's remarks. "The way he has been ridiculed, lampooned and treated by some people is quite disgraceful," he told BBC Radio 4.
The Muslim Council of Britain said it was grateful for the Archbishop's "thoughtful intervention" on the issue.
Lord Carey said the public debate sparked by Dr Williams's comments might have the positive effect of ensuring that the country's existing sharia councils operate under British law.
In a separate article for The Sunday Telegraph, he said that Dr Williams "may have done us a great favour by airing this whole area of controversy. He might even be regarded as prescient for discussing sharia, even before demand builds among Muslim communities for special provision in British law."
To have your say on this or any other issue visit www.independent.co.uk/IoSblogs
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/adopting-sharia-within-british-law-would-be-disastrous-lord-carey-tells-his-successor-as-archbishop-780510.html
By Ian GriggsSunday, 10 February 2008
The Archbishop of Canterbury's predecessor joined the chorus of criticism against him last night for his comments on Islamic law. George Carey accused Dr Rowan Williams of "overstating" the case for accommodating sharia. But he said that Dr Williams should not be forced to quit over his remarks.
"There can be no exceptions to the laws of our land, which have been so painfully honed by the struggle for democracy and human rights," Lord Carey wrote in the News of the World. "His conclusion that Britain will have to concede some place in law for aspects of sharia is a view I cannot share. His acceptance of some Muslim laws within British law would be disastrous."
However, Lord Carey also defended the Archbishop, saying: "This is not a matter upon which Dr Williams should resign. He has my full support."
The storm began on Thursday when Dr Williams said the adoption of certain aspects of Islamic law seemed "unavoidable" and that the UK had to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens did not relate to the British legal system.
Dr Williams preached a memorial and thanksgiving service for the Cambridge divinity professor Charles Moule yesterday – after which he was greeted by both applause and boos – but said nothing about the row. He is thought likely to raise the issue during his address to the General Synod in London today.
Several members of the Synod, the Church of England's ruling body, have called for him to step down. Colonel Edward Armitstead, a Synod member from the diocese of Bath and Wells, said: "I don't think he's got the gift of leadership that the church needs." And Alison Ruoff, a member from London, accused him of vacillation and weakness. "As a leader of the Christian community, he is a disaster."
But the Right Reverend Stephen Lowe, the Bishop of Hulme, said he was disgusted at the knee-jerk reaction to Dr Williams's remarks. "The way he has been ridiculed, lampooned and treated by some people is quite disgraceful," he told BBC Radio 4.
The Muslim Council of Britain said it was grateful for the Archbishop's "thoughtful intervention" on the issue.
Lord Carey said the public debate sparked by Dr Williams's comments might have the positive effect of ensuring that the country's existing sharia councils operate under British law.
In a separate article for The Sunday Telegraph, he said that Dr Williams "may have done us a great favour by airing this whole area of controversy. He might even be regarded as prescient for discussing sharia, even before demand builds among Muslim communities for special provision in British law."
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/adopting-sharia-within-british-law-would-be-disastrous-lord-carey-tells-his-successor-as-archbishop-780510.html
A question of honour: Police say 17,000 women are victims every year
A question of honour: Police say 17,000 women are victims every year
Ministers are stepping up the fight against so-called 'honour' crime and forced marriages. Detectives say official statistics are 'merely the tip of the iceberg' of this phenomenon. Brian Brady investigates
Sunday, 10 February 2008
Up to 17,000 women in Britain are being subjected to "honour" related violence, including murder, every year, according to police chiefs.
And official figures on forced marriages are the tip of the iceberg, says the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO).
It warns that the number of girls falling victim to forced marriages, kidnappings, sexual assaults, beatings and even murder by relatives intent on upholding the "honour" of their family is up to 35 times higher than official figures suggest.
The crisis, with children as young as 11 having been sent abroad to be married, has prompted the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to call on British consular staff in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan to take more action to identify and help British citizens believed to be the victims of forced marriages in recent years.
The Home Office is drawing up an action plan to tackle honour-based violence which "aims to improve the response of police and other agencies" and "ensure that victims are encouraged to come forward with the knowledge that they will receive the help and support they need". And a Civil Protection Bill coming into effect later this year will give courts greater guidance on dealing with forced marriages.
Commander Steve Allen, head of ACPO's honour-based violence unit, says the true toll of people falling victim to brutal ancient customs is "massively unreported" and far worse than is traditionally accepted. "We work on a figure which suggests it is about 500 cases shared between us and the Forced Marriage Unit per year," he said: "If the generally accepted statistic is that a victim will suffer 35 experiences of domestic violence before they report, then I suspect if you multiplied our reporting by 35 times you may be somewhere near where people's experience is at." His disturbing assessment, made to a committee of MPs last week, comes amid a series of gruesome murders and attacks on British women at the hands of their relatives.
Marilyn Mornington, a district judge and chair of the Domestic Violence Working Group, warned that fears of retribution, and the authorities' failure to understand the problem completely, meant the vast majority of victims were still too scared to come forward for help. In evidence to the home affairs committee, which is investigating the problem, she said: "We need a national strategy to identify the large number of pupils, particularly girls, missing from school registers who have been taken off the register and are said to be home schooled, which leads to these issues. Airport staff and other staff need to be trained to recognise girls who are being taken out of the country.
"We are bringing three girls a week back from Islamabad as victims of forced marriage. We know that is the tip of the iceberg, but that is the failure end. It has to be part of education within the communities and the children themselves."
Women who have been taken overseas to be married against their will are now being rescued on an almost daily basis. The Government's Forced Marriage Unit (FMU) handled approximately 400 cases last year – 167 of them leading to young Britons being helped back to the UK to escape unwanted partners overseas. And it is not just women who are affected. Home Office figures show that 15 per cent of cases involve men and boys.
In an attempt to crack down on the crimes being committed in the name of honour, police are to introduce a new training package that will give all officers instructions on handling honour cases. In addition, detectives are believed to be conducting a "cold case" style review of previous suicides amid suspicions that cases of honour killings are more common than previously thought.
Almost all victims of the most extreme crimes are women, killed in half of cases by their own husbands. Sometimes murders are carried out by other male relatives, or even hired killers. The fear that many thousands are left to endure honour violence alone may be supported by the disturbing details of the incidence of suicide within the British Asian community. Women aged 16 to 24 from Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi backgrounds are three times more likely to kill themselves than the national average for women of their age.
A report published last week by the Centre for Social Cohesion found that many women felt unable to defy their families and therefore "suffer violence, abuse, depression, anxiety and other psychological problems that can lead to self-harm, schizophrenia and suicide". James Brandon, co-author of Crimes of the Community: Honour-based Violence in the UK, said: "The Government is still not taking honour crime seriously. Until this happens, the ideas of honour which perpetuate this violence will continue to be passed on through generations. Religious leaders, local authorities and central government must work together to end such abuses of human rights."
The human cost of honour crime was vividly captured in a haunting video message from murdered Banaz Mahmood, who revealed how her own father had tried to kill her after she abandoned her arranged marriage and fell in love with another man. In the grainy message she told how he plied her with brandy – the first time she had ever drunk alcohol – pulled the curtains and asked her to turn around.
The 19-year-old fled, but less than a month after making the grainy video on a mobile phone, Banaz was dead. Her naked body was found buried in a yard in Birmingham in 2006, more than 100 miles from her London home. She had been raped and tortured by men hired by her uncle to kill her. Mahmood's father, uncle and one of her killers were sentenced to a total of 60 years in jail for the murder.
And the fatal potential of honour disputes was laid bare last month when a coroner said he was convinced that a Muslim teenager who feared she was being forced into an arranged marriage by her parents had suffered a "vile murder." Ian Smith said the concept of an arranged marriage was "central" to the circumstances leading up to the death of 17-year-old Shafilea Ahmed, whose decomposed body was discovered on the banks of the River Kent at Sedgwick, Cumbria, four years ago. After running away from home in February 2003, Shafilea told housing officers: "My parents are going to send me to Pakistan and I'll be married to someone and left there." The tragic story of the bright teenager who wanted to go to university and study law is far from the only example of the anguish suffered by British teenagers in recent years.
Toafiq Wahab, British consul in Dhaka, Bangladesh, recalls a "rescue mission" to recover a 17-year-old who called his office from Sylhet. "We had to track her down and 36 hours from taking that call, we had turned up at her house with an armed police escort," he said. "The house was filled with over 20 of her relations, most of whom were from Britain and stunned to see me. They obviously did not want her to leave. We simply asked her if she wanted to leave and go back to the UK in the presence of all her family and she agreed. I then spoke to the family and explained what we were doing and tried to make them understand. In the end, we had to get the police to assist in helping us to leave."
Former Bradford policeman Philip Balmforth, who works with vulnerable Asian women, said he saw 395 cases of forced marriage in the city last year. "I had a case of a 14-year-old girl at school," he recalled. "The teacher tells me that the girl claims to have been married. So I went along to the school with a Muslim colleague. We saw the girl. We asked her a few questions and we were not sure. Then the girl said: 'If you don't believe me I have the video at home.'"
In Bradford alone, a total of 250 girls aged between 13 and 16 were taken off the school rolls last year because they failed to return from trips abroad. Campaigners suspect many were victims of forced marriages.
"If contacted by concerned young British men and women in the UK, the FMU provides free and confidential advice on the potential dangers of being forced into marriage overseas and precautions to take to help avoid this happening," said a Foreign Office spokesperson last night. "If we learn that a British national overseas is being forced into marriage, or has already been forced into marriage, we look at various means of consular assistance ranging from action through the courts to rescue missions."
"The FMU can also help to arrange accommodation for victims for when they return to the UK and can refer victims to counselling and supports groups, legal centres, and so on.
"When it is necessary, the FMU and our embassies and high commissions work closely with the police and judiciary overseas in order to organise emergency rescue and repatriation missions."
Britain's hidden scandal
The kidnap victim
In June 2000 Narina Anwar, 29, and her two sisters claim they were tricked by their parents into going on a family holiday to a remote village in Pakistan, where they were held captive for five months in an attempt to force them to marry three illiterate villagers. The sisters fled to Lahore and contacted the British High Commission, which persuaded their parents to hand over their children's passports so they could return home.
The 'slave'
Gina Singh, 28, sued her former mother-in-law for £35,000 in 2006 after she was forced to work 17 hours a day around the house. Ms Singh, from Nottingham, was forbidden to leave the house on her own after an arranged marriage in 2002.
The runaway wife
In 1983, Zana Muhsen and her sister Nadia, from Birmingham, were pushed by their father to visit Yemen and forced to marry. Zana, now 35, escaped eight years later. Her father had sold her for a few thousand dollars. The experience is recounted in her book, 'Sold'.
The murder victim
Surjit Athwal disappeared with Bachan Athwal, her mother-in-law, after a family wedding in India in 1998. Her body was never found. Bachan later boasted that she arranged for her son, Sukhdave, to murder Surjit after finding out that she was having an affair.
The attempted suicide
Shafilea Ahmed was the victim of a suspected honour killing. The 17-year-old's body was found months after she had returned from a trip to Pakistan in 2003. On the trip she drank bleach. The coroner said he saw it as a 'desperate measure' to avoid a forced marriage.
To have your say on this or any other issue visit www.independent.co.uk/IoSblogs
Interesting? Click here to explore further
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/a-question-of-honour-police-say-17000-women-are-victims-every-year-780522.html
Ministers are stepping up the fight against so-called 'honour' crime and forced marriages. Detectives say official statistics are 'merely the tip of the iceberg' of this phenomenon. Brian Brady investigates
Sunday, 10 February 2008
Up to 17,000 women in Britain are being subjected to "honour" related violence, including murder, every year, according to police chiefs.
And official figures on forced marriages are the tip of the iceberg, says the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO).
It warns that the number of girls falling victim to forced marriages, kidnappings, sexual assaults, beatings and even murder by relatives intent on upholding the "honour" of their family is up to 35 times higher than official figures suggest.
The crisis, with children as young as 11 having been sent abroad to be married, has prompted the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to call on British consular staff in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan to take more action to identify and help British citizens believed to be the victims of forced marriages in recent years.
The Home Office is drawing up an action plan to tackle honour-based violence which "aims to improve the response of police and other agencies" and "ensure that victims are encouraged to come forward with the knowledge that they will receive the help and support they need". And a Civil Protection Bill coming into effect later this year will give courts greater guidance on dealing with forced marriages.
Commander Steve Allen, head of ACPO's honour-based violence unit, says the true toll of people falling victim to brutal ancient customs is "massively unreported" and far worse than is traditionally accepted. "We work on a figure which suggests it is about 500 cases shared between us and the Forced Marriage Unit per year," he said: "If the generally accepted statistic is that a victim will suffer 35 experiences of domestic violence before they report, then I suspect if you multiplied our reporting by 35 times you may be somewhere near where people's experience is at." His disturbing assessment, made to a committee of MPs last week, comes amid a series of gruesome murders and attacks on British women at the hands of their relatives.
Marilyn Mornington, a district judge and chair of the Domestic Violence Working Group, warned that fears of retribution, and the authorities' failure to understand the problem completely, meant the vast majority of victims were still too scared to come forward for help. In evidence to the home affairs committee, which is investigating the problem, she said: "We need a national strategy to identify the large number of pupils, particularly girls, missing from school registers who have been taken off the register and are said to be home schooled, which leads to these issues. Airport staff and other staff need to be trained to recognise girls who are being taken out of the country.
"We are bringing three girls a week back from Islamabad as victims of forced marriage. We know that is the tip of the iceberg, but that is the failure end. It has to be part of education within the communities and the children themselves."
Women who have been taken overseas to be married against their will are now being rescued on an almost daily basis. The Government's Forced Marriage Unit (FMU) handled approximately 400 cases last year – 167 of them leading to young Britons being helped back to the UK to escape unwanted partners overseas. And it is not just women who are affected. Home Office figures show that 15 per cent of cases involve men and boys.
In an attempt to crack down on the crimes being committed in the name of honour, police are to introduce a new training package that will give all officers instructions on handling honour cases. In addition, detectives are believed to be conducting a "cold case" style review of previous suicides amid suspicions that cases of honour killings are more common than previously thought.
Almost all victims of the most extreme crimes are women, killed in half of cases by their own husbands. Sometimes murders are carried out by other male relatives, or even hired killers. The fear that many thousands are left to endure honour violence alone may be supported by the disturbing details of the incidence of suicide within the British Asian community. Women aged 16 to 24 from Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi backgrounds are three times more likely to kill themselves than the national average for women of their age.
A report published last week by the Centre for Social Cohesion found that many women felt unable to defy their families and therefore "suffer violence, abuse, depression, anxiety and other psychological problems that can lead to self-harm, schizophrenia and suicide". James Brandon, co-author of Crimes of the Community: Honour-based Violence in the UK, said: "The Government is still not taking honour crime seriously. Until this happens, the ideas of honour which perpetuate this violence will continue to be passed on through generations. Religious leaders, local authorities and central government must work together to end such abuses of human rights."
The human cost of honour crime was vividly captured in a haunting video message from murdered Banaz Mahmood, who revealed how her own father had tried to kill her after she abandoned her arranged marriage and fell in love with another man. In the grainy message she told how he plied her with brandy – the first time she had ever drunk alcohol – pulled the curtains and asked her to turn around.
The 19-year-old fled, but less than a month after making the grainy video on a mobile phone, Banaz was dead. Her naked body was found buried in a yard in Birmingham in 2006, more than 100 miles from her London home. She had been raped and tortured by men hired by her uncle to kill her. Mahmood's father, uncle and one of her killers were sentenced to a total of 60 years in jail for the murder.
And the fatal potential of honour disputes was laid bare last month when a coroner said he was convinced that a Muslim teenager who feared she was being forced into an arranged marriage by her parents had suffered a "vile murder." Ian Smith said the concept of an arranged marriage was "central" to the circumstances leading up to the death of 17-year-old Shafilea Ahmed, whose decomposed body was discovered on the banks of the River Kent at Sedgwick, Cumbria, four years ago. After running away from home in February 2003, Shafilea told housing officers: "My parents are going to send me to Pakistan and I'll be married to someone and left there." The tragic story of the bright teenager who wanted to go to university and study law is far from the only example of the anguish suffered by British teenagers in recent years.
Toafiq Wahab, British consul in Dhaka, Bangladesh, recalls a "rescue mission" to recover a 17-year-old who called his office from Sylhet. "We had to track her down and 36 hours from taking that call, we had turned up at her house with an armed police escort," he said. "The house was filled with over 20 of her relations, most of whom were from Britain and stunned to see me. They obviously did not want her to leave. We simply asked her if she wanted to leave and go back to the UK in the presence of all her family and she agreed. I then spoke to the family and explained what we were doing and tried to make them understand. In the end, we had to get the police to assist in helping us to leave."
Former Bradford policeman Philip Balmforth, who works with vulnerable Asian women, said he saw 395 cases of forced marriage in the city last year. "I had a case of a 14-year-old girl at school," he recalled. "The teacher tells me that the girl claims to have been married. So I went along to the school with a Muslim colleague. We saw the girl. We asked her a few questions and we were not sure. Then the girl said: 'If you don't believe me I have the video at home.'"
In Bradford alone, a total of 250 girls aged between 13 and 16 were taken off the school rolls last year because they failed to return from trips abroad. Campaigners suspect many were victims of forced marriages.
"If contacted by concerned young British men and women in the UK, the FMU provides free and confidential advice on the potential dangers of being forced into marriage overseas and precautions to take to help avoid this happening," said a Foreign Office spokesperson last night. "If we learn that a British national overseas is being forced into marriage, or has already been forced into marriage, we look at various means of consular assistance ranging from action through the courts to rescue missions."
"The FMU can also help to arrange accommodation for victims for when they return to the UK and can refer victims to counselling and supports groups, legal centres, and so on.
"When it is necessary, the FMU and our embassies and high commissions work closely with the police and judiciary overseas in order to organise emergency rescue and repatriation missions."
Britain's hidden scandal
The kidnap victim
In June 2000 Narina Anwar, 29, and her two sisters claim they were tricked by their parents into going on a family holiday to a remote village in Pakistan, where they were held captive for five months in an attempt to force them to marry three illiterate villagers. The sisters fled to Lahore and contacted the British High Commission, which persuaded their parents to hand over their children's passports so they could return home.
The 'slave'
Gina Singh, 28, sued her former mother-in-law for £35,000 in 2006 after she was forced to work 17 hours a day around the house. Ms Singh, from Nottingham, was forbidden to leave the house on her own after an arranged marriage in 2002.
The runaway wife
In 1983, Zana Muhsen and her sister Nadia, from Birmingham, were pushed by their father to visit Yemen and forced to marry. Zana, now 35, escaped eight years later. Her father had sold her for a few thousand dollars. The experience is recounted in her book, 'Sold'.
The murder victim
Surjit Athwal disappeared with Bachan Athwal, her mother-in-law, after a family wedding in India in 1998. Her body was never found. Bachan later boasted that she arranged for her son, Sukhdave, to murder Surjit after finding out that she was having an affair.
The attempted suicide
Shafilea Ahmed was the victim of a suspected honour killing. The 17-year-old's body was found months after she had returned from a trip to Pakistan in 2003. On the trip she drank bleach. The coroner said he saw it as a 'desperate measure' to avoid a forced marriage.
To have your say on this or any other issue visit www.independent.co.uk/IoSblogs
Interesting? Click here to explore further
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/a-question-of-honour-police-say-17000-women-are-victims-every-year-780522.html
Töre İngiltere’de manşet
Töre İngiltere’de manşet
İngiliz gazetesi The Independent’ın pazar yayını Independent On Sunday, İngiltere’deki “namus cinayetleri” ve şiddetinin oluşturduğu ciddi sorunu, okuyucularına “Her yıl kadınlara yönelik 17 bin saldırı” manşetiyle duyurdu.İngiliz polisinin, ülkede her yıl 17 bin kadının, cinayet dahil olmak üzere, “namus” bahanesiyle işlenen şiddet eylemlerine maruz kaldığını söylediğine dikkat çeken gazete, İngiltere’deki üst düzey polis kadrolarını örgütleyen ACPO derneğinin zorla evliliklere ilişkin resmi verilerin sadece buzdağının görünen kısmını oluşturduğunu, gerçek rakamın 35 kat daha yüksek olduğu uyarısını yaptığını yazdı. Haberde, 11 yaşındaki çocuklarının bile evlendirilmek üzere yurtdışına gönderildiği ifade edildi.
BAKANLIKTAN EYLEM PLANI
İngiliz Dışişleri Bakanlığı’nın, Bangladeş, Hindistan ve Pakistan’daki konsolosluklarına “zorla evlilik kurbanları”na yardımcı olmak amacıyla daha çok adım atılması talimatı verdiğine işaret eden gazete, İçişleri Bakanlığının da, “namus şiddetine karşı” yeni bir eylem planı hazırladığını kaydetti.
‘ZORLA EVLİLİK BİRİMİ’
İngiliz hükümetinin oluşturduğu Zorla Evlilik Birimi’nin geçen yıl 400 olay ile uğraştığını, bu çerçevede yurt dışında zorla evlendirilmek istenen 167 genç İngiliz vatandaşının İngiltere’ye geri dönmelerini sağladığını anlatan gazete, zorla evliliklerin sadece genç kızların sorunu olmadığını, resmi verilerin, olayların yüzde 15’inin kurbanlarının genç erkekler olduğunu gösterdiğine işaret etti.
İNTİHARLARDA ARTIŞ
“Namus cinayeti” kurbanlarının yarısının kocalarınca öldürülen kadınlar olduğuna vurgu yapılan haberde ayrıca Bangladeşli, Hintli ve Pakistan kökenli İngiliz vatandaşı kızların arasında artan intihar olaylarına da değinildi. 16-24 yaşındaki kadınlar arasında intihar oranının ulusal ortalamadan üç kat daha yüksek olduğu yazıldı.
http://www.aksam.com.tr/haber.asp?a=108269,5
İngiliz gazetesi The Independent’ın pazar yayını Independent On Sunday, İngiltere’deki “namus cinayetleri” ve şiddetinin oluşturduğu ciddi sorunu, okuyucularına “Her yıl kadınlara yönelik 17 bin saldırı” manşetiyle duyurdu.İngiliz polisinin, ülkede her yıl 17 bin kadının, cinayet dahil olmak üzere, “namus” bahanesiyle işlenen şiddet eylemlerine maruz kaldığını söylediğine dikkat çeken gazete, İngiltere’deki üst düzey polis kadrolarını örgütleyen ACPO derneğinin zorla evliliklere ilişkin resmi verilerin sadece buzdağının görünen kısmını oluşturduğunu, gerçek rakamın 35 kat daha yüksek olduğu uyarısını yaptığını yazdı. Haberde, 11 yaşındaki çocuklarının bile evlendirilmek üzere yurtdışına gönderildiği ifade edildi.
BAKANLIKTAN EYLEM PLANI
İngiliz Dışişleri Bakanlığı’nın, Bangladeş, Hindistan ve Pakistan’daki konsolosluklarına “zorla evlilik kurbanları”na yardımcı olmak amacıyla daha çok adım atılması talimatı verdiğine işaret eden gazete, İçişleri Bakanlığının da, “namus şiddetine karşı” yeni bir eylem planı hazırladığını kaydetti.
‘ZORLA EVLİLİK BİRİMİ’
İngiliz hükümetinin oluşturduğu Zorla Evlilik Birimi’nin geçen yıl 400 olay ile uğraştığını, bu çerçevede yurt dışında zorla evlendirilmek istenen 167 genç İngiliz vatandaşının İngiltere’ye geri dönmelerini sağladığını anlatan gazete, zorla evliliklerin sadece genç kızların sorunu olmadığını, resmi verilerin, olayların yüzde 15’inin kurbanlarının genç erkekler olduğunu gösterdiğine işaret etti.
İNTİHARLARDA ARTIŞ
“Namus cinayeti” kurbanlarının yarısının kocalarınca öldürülen kadınlar olduğuna vurgu yapılan haberde ayrıca Bangladeşli, Hintli ve Pakistan kökenli İngiliz vatandaşı kızların arasında artan intihar olaylarına da değinildi. 16-24 yaşındaki kadınlar arasında intihar oranının ulusal ortalamadan üç kat daha yüksek olduğu yazıldı.
http://www.aksam.com.tr/haber.asp?a=108269,5
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