Forced marriage - an international, but not cultural, issue

Forced marriage is an international issue, at least partly because some young women are taken to their family’s home country and their passports taken away to force them into marriage; they are also put under physical and emotional pressure to consent to a family’s wishes. This is different from an arranged marriage, in which both man and woman consent, but the family (usually the parents) play a big part in bringing the couple together. My experience is that increasingly parents are anxious about accepting the responsibility for this in Western societies, even where the family's historic culture has supported arranged marriage. However, it's still widespread among British Asian communities, and supported by many in both the current marrying generation and among many of their parents.

In the UK, a useful House of Commons Library research briefing covers the current government consultation on forced marriage. As always with Library briefings, it also covers a wide range of official and non-official documentation. If you followed back all the sources, you would be very well-informed indeed.

The English government is thinking about criminalising (as the Scottish Parliament has) forced marriage – at the moment it is a civil offence, that is an offence against the victim, who has to take action in the courts. The recent The Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007 allows the courts to intervene with various protective orders. There are international processes for retrieving people from families who have in effect kidnapped them.

The paper makes the point that consent (informed and unpressurised consent) is required for marriage in all major world religions. However, some of the political and professional anxiety in pursuing these cases may well come from a feeling that we should not interfere in cultural matters. But it’s like violence towards children or women, it may be a commonplace in some cultures, but it’s an unacceptable trespass on the victim’s human rights and should not be condoned.

However, it's a pity that in his speeches the Prime Minister has discussed it alongside immigration issues. Neither forced marriage (illegal) nor arranged marriage (legal) ought to be a factor on thinking about our minority ethnic groups and their cultural preferences.

Research Briefing on Forced Marriage in the UK

Quiet advocacy for social equity - Helen Stuchberry's life

One of the side gains of being associated (I have forgotten what my role is actually called) with the journal Australian Social Work, is that I also occasionally get sent the magazine of the Australian Association of Social Workers. This time it has an obituary of Helen Stuchberry, a well-known Australian social worker, who died last year.

Her life story is in part a record of the disadvantages women suffered in achieving their aspirations in part generations. She wanted to be a scientist, but women were disadvantaged in that field. So she became a social worker and when she became pregnant with her first daughter had to resign from her government job because women with children couldn't hold a government post.

Later, went back into hospital social work, and eventually held senior posts in various community health and social care roles. After she retired, she worked in various voluntary roles, including setting up a hostel providing accommodation for older people in her community.

Her early experience with the social security department gave her experience of social disadvantage that developed her 'great compassion for the disadvantaged and the need for social equity that would ground her for life'. The article says: 'Helen was a lifetime advocate for social justice, which she often achieved through gentle pressure in the right places'.

Quiet advocacy may be unfashionable with some, but it has achieved a lot in the world.

Democracy should be committed to concern for poor people's rights

The Times of India reports the suicide of an Indian post-graduate in social work, Pankaj Wankari, after he became involved with Naxalites (a Maoist splinter group of the former Indian communist parties). He had been arrested and was interrogated by the Police (although he was not abused and he was not arrested or charged with any offence). It seems he had unknowingly had contact with the people engaged in Naxalite campaigning. His suicide note said: ‘It was my simplicity that others took advantage of and so I am…’

According to his brother, his commitment was ‘to work for spreading awareness among the poor about their rights’. It’s a pity that that kind of personal and professional commitment, natural for any social worker you would have thought, gets picked up by people with a more disruptive ideology. It's not simplicity to seek justice for poor people.

But it’s also a problem for democratic regimes that their lack of action on about poor people’s rights allows extremist political positions to seem the only recourse, when poor people’s rights and needs ought to be a natural concern for people of all political positions.

The Times if India article here: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-03-14/nagpur/31164558_1_pankaj-chandrapur-police-korchi-dalam