Are we Western infidels supposed to close our eyes while young girls are beaten and abused to force them into unwanted arranged marriages?

DERBY, England -- Lina, a wide-eyed 18-year-old, is still trying to get the hang of freedom in 3-inch heels.

Until a month ago, Lina had never worn Western clothing. Her parents, immigrants from Pakistan, insisted she wear the jilbab, a head-to-toe covering favored by conservative Muslims.

When she turned 16, her parents informed her that she was "engaged" to her first cousin, a 21-year-old man she detested. When she balked, she said, her parents withdrew her from school and locked her in her room, where they told her she would remain until she consented.

"They put two padlocks on the door and they locked the windows," she said. They also installed spikes along the top of the backyard fence so she couldn't climb over.

Lina's imprisonment lasted nearly two years. The only time she was allowed out of her room was to do housework. There were frequent beatings, she said, and endless mental cruelties.

"My mom threatened me with a knife. They also cut my hair off."

One day, Lina saw an article in a women's magazine about a shelter in Derby for women who were victims of forced marriage. She called, and Jasvinder Sanghera, who runs the shelter, helped her plan an escape.

Lina's story is not unusual. Each year, hundreds of South Asian women living in Britain are forced into marriages. It is a growing problem that authorities have only recently begun to tackle.

This is not new, and happens all the time in the United States. I remember a classmate in college, an attractive Muslim girl who was born and raised in this country, facing a similar situation. After semester break, she simply did not come back to school. Some months later I ran into her again, working as a desk clerk at a local motel. She told me that her family had taken her to visit her father’s brother in Central America. She though nothing of allowing her father to carry her passport and tickets, and he always handled the money. When she arrived at the family home, she was informed that it was agreed she would marry her cousin and stay behind. When she refused, she was marooned by her parents in a foreign country with instructions to marry her cousin if she wished to ever see the United States again. Fortunately, the American Embassy was able to help her get home – but her parent’s refusal to allow her to retrieve any belongings from the house meant she had to drop out of school and take the hotel job.

There must be some way to stop such traffic in unwilling brides – in the western world, if not in countries where such barbaric customs remain.

Posted by: Greg at 11:11 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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