Women slavery- forced marriage, female circumcision, fake virginity are still in vogue- will women ever escape from deep-rooted fundamentalist traditions?

A clever young girl’s ambition of becoming a solicitor has been wrecked forever after Halton Magistrates’ Court convicted her parents with her murder.

The parents of the 17-year-old Shafile Ahmed, from Warrington (originally Pakistan), were desperate to force her into a marriage, it was revealed.

Forced marriages are different from arranged marriages in one crucial respect: an arranged marriage is performed with the full and free consent of both parties and is still the chosen practice for many people all over the world,

whereas forced marriages are conducted against the will of one or other party, under coercion and threats of violence, abduction, rape and even murder.

Unhappy Bride The Bridge MAG image

Although the usual victims are of South Asian origin, forced marriage is not limited to just a few cultural groups: historically, the British Royal Family and aristocracy were known for it.

Shafile belongs to a large group of women around the world, who stand to have their friendship, their love, their marriage or ambition destroyed forever by their parents, brothers, husbands or fiancés who, because of their deep-rooted fundamentalist beliefs, refuse to adjust to the more liberal realities of modern life.

Shafira is one of many women around the world to have become victims of “honour killing”, abuse or banishment from their communities because of their attempts to assert their independence.

Millions of girls as young as 14 around the world are forced into marriage and the practice is especially prevalent in South India

(Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives), Latin America (the Bahamas, Haiti, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guiana, Netherlands Antilles, Aruba, Surinam, Papiamento Belize, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad, Tobago, Guyana, Antigua, Barbuda, Bahamas, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadine), and sub-Saharan Africa  (Madagascar, Lesotho, Union of Comoros, Chad, Djibouti, Gambia, Morocco, Namibia, Malawi, Mauritius, and the Seychelles).

Laws preventing forced marriage and protecting the victims are now in force in England, Wales and Northern Ireland…

Aisha, from Senegal, was divorced by her husband, and banned and rejected from her community aged 25, because she had dared to defy expectations that she would be a virgin on her wedding-day.

Unhappy Couple The Bridge MAG image

In fact, according to fundamentalist Muslim tradition, brides are expected to be chaste because women do not have the right to have sex before marriage, whatever their age….

This results in young women of immigrant background increasingly considering oral and anal sex as the only option for them and their boyfriends because this will not damage their virginity.

Others adopt even more extreme methods to ‘retain’ their purity – paying for costly and painful surgery designed to ‘restore’ their virginity, in order that they might indulge in as much sex as they please beforehand…

Aissatou (name changed)…

Follow the links below to read more:

1)

https://www.lulu.com/en/gb/shop/rachel-tcheungna/love-and-relationship-global-news-that-never-fades-the-bridge-magazine-book-from-britains-news-to-world-exclusives/paperback/product-zn269w.html?page=1&pageSize=4

2)

https://www.lulu.com/en/gb/shop/rachel-tcheungna/global-news-that-never-fades-from-britains-news-to-world-exclusives/paperback/product-ennmdm.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Rachel Tcheungna, Author, Writer of 

The Bridge Books and 

The Bridge Magazine Editor.