WUNRN
UK-LONDON - FORCED MARRIAGES OF
YOUNG MUSLIM GIRLS - ILLEGAL BUT RELIGIOUS
Islington - The forced
marriage of under-age girls is prevalent in many countries, with an estimated
25,000 young girls forced into marriage each day. The issue is becoming an
increasing concern in the U.K., and in the London Borough of Islington.
Girls as young as nine-years-old are being
forced into marriage in the London Borough of Islington, with marriages carried
out by back street Imans. Although child marriage is illegal in Britain,
families circumvent the law by conducting marriages in shariah courts attached
to mosques.
The Islington
Tribune reported on the growing trend in which girls under 16
years-of-age are forcibly married to often middle-aged men. They cited figures
provided by the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKWRO) showing
at least 30 girls were forced into marriage in the Islington borough in 2010.
Five of the girls were aged between nine and eleven, the oldest were sixteen.
The UK's Forced
Marriage Unit says that each year 3,000 girls are forced to marry
against their will, with the summer school holidays being the most busiest
time. The New Humanist Organization also
reveals that the school holidays are the most dangerous times for girls to suffer
enforced female genital mutilation, when British school girls are taken abroad
for the procedure which is illegal in Britain.
Dianna Nammi, director of IKWRO, described the
ordeal of child brides. She noted they are forced to sleep with their husbands,
which would be a crime under British law, and said
"They have to cook for them, wash their
clothes, everything. They are still attending schools in Islington, struggling
to do their primary school homework, and at the same time being practically
raped by a middle-aged man regularly and being abused by their families. So
they are a wife, but in a primary school uniform."
According to the ICRW child
brides are more likely to suffer from domestic violence and sexually contracted
diseases. They often "show signs symptomatic of sexual abuse and
post-traumatic stress such as feelings of hopelessness, helplessness and severe
depression."
Imam Ahmed Saad of Finsbury Park Mosque
condemned the practice which he describes as cultural rather than Islamic. He
said "This is down to ignorance, and ignorant people who will use any
excuse they can to do this to their children. It is the practice in their home
countries and they don’t want to stop that here, so they will say it’s in the
Koran, when it is not. According to Islam, it is entirely unacceptable."
Saad went on to say that such forced marriages
are child abuse and that the Imams involved are uneducated. A spokesman for the
Forced Marriage Unit said that forced marriages of under-age children is a
criminal matter.