Racial Stereotyping

The BBC has run an article headed Forced Marriage Unit helped 250 children last year.

Just to give the reader the general impression of what being trapped in a forced marriage is like, they illustrate it with a picture of a young-ish woman peering wistfully through some net curtains. Guess what colour her skin is. Not.

UPDATE: I knew I should have taken a screen shot. Around midday, they changed the picture from one of a white lass to one of a vaguely Asian looking lass.

"The 'leftover' girls: Afghanistan defines official age for females being left on the shelf as 13"

From The Daily Mail:

Afghanistan has upset its young female population by labelling those who have not been married off by the time they are 12 as 'left over girls'.

The Islamic government ordered its All-Afghanistan Women's Federation to use the derogatory term in several stinging articles about the growing number of uneducated, urban and single females aged 13 or over who have 'failed' to find a husband and are now  deemed 'undesirable'.

'Pretty girls do not need a lot of education to be married into a rich and powerful family. But girls with an average or ugly appearance will find it difficult and will probably be sold to slave traders,' reads one article titled 'Leftover Women Do Not Deserve Our Sympathy'...

The conservative country is going under rapid changes with more girls shunning the tradition of being forcibly married and raising a family early. But the government wants to shame them into marrying young to counter the growing and serious gender imbalance among the of 35 million population.

Selective abortions means far more males are born than females - 1,392 boys to 100 girls. The government is also worried that hordes of unmarried men roaming the country could spark social havoc.

Forced Marriage Laws

Something you notice as you get older is that new laws appear and you think "how come we don't already have a law against this?".

Then you do a little Googling and find that actually, we already do. Or at least, there are things in other laws that allow you to achieve the same objective of the new law.

Such is the announcement of the government introducing a law that would criminalise families that forced their children into a marriage.

The law is unnecessary. A person in this country can refuse to marry in the registry office. Marriages can be annulled because of undue pressure. So, the only way to get them to marry is to take them abroad against their will to less civilised countries. At which point, we have laws against kidnapping. Or if taken to a country and told to marry and that they can't return, we have false imprisonment laws. We even have a Forced Marriage Unit that rescues people that have been forced into marriages abroad.

So, why is the government wasting a whole lot of time and money on a law that's unnecessary? The government's own explanation, of making it clear to families that forced marriage is against the law, as though a family that has to evade British law to get someone to marry hasn't worked this out. Fact is that the families know it's not legal, but have already made their mind up that the government can go to Hell and they'll do it anyway.

So, what's the law really about? What it's really about is creating a positive story for the government, something vaguely about upholding British justice, something that will make the public less likely to think that Fred Karno's Army are running the country.

In terms of outcomes, it makes no difference, as we already have all the laws we need. Arguably, we'd be better not having this law with its consultation, civil servants drafting, redrafting and so forth (all of which costs an eye-watering amount of money) and instead hiring a few more people at the Forced Marriage Unit to rescue women from forced marriages and prosecute those involved in it.

Things which happen in every community

Raping young girls

A Muslim community leader has said there is a "problem" of British Pakistani men thinking "white girls are worthless and can be abused". And the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) said it was "investigating why there may be a majority of Asians in these particular kinds of offence".

But police said grooming was "not a racial issue" and MP Keith Vaz also said "no particular race or religion" tended to be involved.

Sex-selective abortions

Dr Tony Falconer, president of the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, said: "Anecdotally, there are social and cultural reasons for preferring one gender over another and we need to know more about why these occur. The issues are complex. For instance, women may be coerced or threatened with violence into having an abortion. The priority would be to identify who these women are and to provide them with support."

Forced marriages (1)

The charity said it wanted to help overcome "the mistaken assumption that the problem is a cultural one"... Ms Sanghera said: "It is not a cultural problem, it is abuse. The sooner people start to regard forced marriage in the same way they do domestic violence the better it will be for those affected by it."

Forced marriages (2)

"It's uncomfortable for people to think about, but it can't remain this hidden any longer. It's not simply about Muslim families; we also found that it happens among Chinese and African communities too, such as the Somali families. Nor is it something that comes across with new immigrants."

Honour killings

Happen to white girls too, of course.

I'm still trying to track down articles from the BBC or the Guardian in which somebody says that female genital mutilation, marrying your cousin, blowing up Tube trains and postal voting fraud happens "in every community".

That could be awkward

From the BBC:

The government unit dealing with forced marriages received 65% more calls about male victims last year than the previous year, figures show. In 2009 it received more than 220 emails and calls to its help line about male victims, up from 134 in 2008. Many male victims were forced into marriage because their families know or suspect they are gay...

Crikey. I don't like the idea of forced marriage one bit, but imagine you were forced to marry another man because your parents wrongly suspect you are gay...

"New laws against forced marriages"

I agree with the broad aims of this legislation, but there is no reason to assume it will achieve its purpose, none in the slightest.

Ergo, it might more sense to go on the opposite tack, and reduce the hallowed legal status that marriage has, HH proposing.

For example, if there were no presumption that a foreign spouse has automatic right to be given a UK residence visa (which is the reason for the vast majority of forced marriages), and instead had to apply for a residence permit on his or her own merits, a lot of the problem would sort itself out.

Next.

Nisha Patel RIP

As someone who reads the paper a lot, and is also prone to generalisations, when I read stories about a woman of Asian* descent being murdered, my first thought is "The husband or his family or her parents did it", as was the case here, here or here.

As I popped out for a cigarette last year, I got chatting to an electrician from The Comedy Theatre, who told me that mates of his in the police knew perfectly well that it was her 'grieving' husband wot dunnit and they were determined to convict him. Now, say what you like about the police, they look after their own and do not tolerate Bobbicide** ... skip the middle bit ... said husband has now been charged with arranging her murder.

Heh heh, no doubt I'll be called an Islamophobe for posting this.

* Which really means 'Pakistan, India, Bangladesh', heck knows why they call it 'Asian', doesn't Asia include Russia and China?

** If that's a word.