from the May 15, 2003 edition -
Pakistanis abroad trick daughters into marriage
By Owais Tohid | Special to The Christian Science Monitor
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN - When Neelum Aziz visited Kashmir for the
first time last year, the young British girl couldn’t wait to
explore her family’s home village. But her parents had something
else in mind.
Two weeks after arriving in Kotli - in the Pakistan-administered
part of the disputed territory - Ms. Aziz was told she had to
marry her cousin.
“[My father and uncle] took away my [British] passport, money,
and other belongings and locked me up,” she says. “I screamed
and shouted and kept on crying. My tears dried up, but my family
elders did not listen to me and married me to a cousin of mine
without my consent,” she says.
Aziz’s story is only the most recent example of hundreds of
young girls who become victims of their families’ desire to
preserve an age-old tradition. According to human rights
activists, 250 girls like Aziz - daughters of British citizens
from Pakistan - were forced into marriages with relatives in
2002 alone.
For many Pakistanis living abroad, sending their child to marry
in the home country is a sure way to preserve culture and
lineage. But for many of the girls themselves, who chafe at
harsh parental control after relishing freedom in their adopted
country, this clash of cultures is a breach of fundamental human
rights. It’s a cultural clash that diplomats and law-
enforcement officials find difficult to resolve, because it
takes place in two separate countries and legal systems.
“[These Pakistanis] opt to live in the West but want to keep
alive the traditions of the East which victimize women,” says
Zia Awan, the head of Madadgaar, a nongovernmental organization
that provides legal aid and is a crisis center for women in
Karachi, Pakistan. “Bringing the girls back to Pakistan makes
coercion simpler and easier, as the young girls being brought up
in the West are alienated from their known environment,” he
says.
Most of the reported cases are of British-born Pakistanis; about
a million Pakistanis live in England. But activists say girls of
Pakistani descent from Norway, the Netherlands, and Ireland have
also been brought to Pakistan by their parents and forcibly
married to relatives.
The practice is not new, but seemingly on the rise, according to
Mr. Awan. “We are witnessing an extremist return to Islam,
especially among Pakistanis living abroad. They perceive the
changing policies of the West to combat terrorism as a direct
hostility toward Muslims living in the West, and we believe that
the rise in forced marriages is linked to the changing
attitudes.”
In Pakistan, forced marriages usually go uncontested. “Here
girls are treated as animals. They are bought, sold and even
bartered to settle the tribal feuds,” says a well known,
independent human rights activist in Karachi, Attiya Dawood.
“The girl is a symbol of honor in our society and is targeted at
every level.” Her consent in a marriage has “no importance,” she
adds.
Some observers point out that forced marriages are a cultural,
rather than religious, issue. Marriage in Islam is a civil
contract, requiring that the woman vocally express her consent
three times in front of witnesses.
“Islam is not a religion of extremism or coercion. It does not
allow this practice,” says Anis Ahmed, a professor of
comparative religion at the Institute of Policy Studies in
Islamabad. “There is a difference in the social and cultural
ethos in civilization of the East and the West. Here girls have
to take their families and parents into consideration while
marrying, it is not just one person’s decision. So there is a
difference between the perception about marriage in the West and
East.”
Attempts by women to protest arranged marriages often backfire.
In one widely reported case, Samia Sarwar was murdered at a
women’s shelter in Lahore in April 1999. A resident of Peshawar,
she fled to Lahore seeking legal assistance to file for divorce
from her abusive husband and to marry a man of her own choice.
But, according to Amnesty International, Ms. Sarwar’s educated
and influential parents considered her request for divorce a
dishonor and hired a hit man to shoot her during a meeting with
her lawyers.
Five years ago, Rukhsana Naz, a British girl of Pakistani
origin, was strangled to death by her brother in Britain. Her
crime was that she had refused to stay in a marriage arranged
when she was 16. A court in Britain sentenced Ms. Naz’s brother
and her mother - who assisted in the murder - to life in prison.
The incident triggered a movement within the British community
against this illegal practice of forced marriages, and a liaison
was established by British and Pakistani authorities in
Islamabad to help victims of forced marriages.
Aziz herself managed to escape her parents’ decision, taking
advantage of this liaison. When she refused to marry her cousin
and threatened to return to Britain, Aziz says the family elders
locked her in her room. “I was kept there and provided meals. My
elders would … try to convince me that it would be better for
my family if I marry my cousin. It went on for almost 12 days,
and then a cleric was called, and i was wedded to a person whom
I did not want to spend the rest of my life with.”
Eventually, Aziz sent a letter calling for help to the British
High Commission in Islamabad. Within a few days, British
officials learned that Aziz was already married and being
detained against her will.
Aziz appeared in high court May 2 in Muzaffarabad, the capital
city of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. With help from the
British High Commission, the chief justice ordered her release.
“If I am sent back to [Kashmir], I fear they will kill me,” Ms
Aziz told the court. “I am told not to speak the truth otherwise
I will be shot,”
Last week, she returned to Britain. Her lawyer, Raja Shafqat
Khan Abbasi, who handled 14 cases like hers within the past
year, says she still fears for her life. But, he adds, “the best
part is she is now in Britain, and she can live her life.”
