Forced marriage and honour-based violence

A range of speakers shared their knowledge and understanding of forced marriage and honour-based violence (honour-based abuse) at the ‘Learning Together’ Event in May 2017.

The day began by watching a video that describes the murder of Shafilea Ahmed by her parents. 

Alexis Wright from Njenni Enterprise: Ending Violence against Women and Girls helped to process emotional responses to Shafilea’s story and to consider these from perspectives as teenagers. Alexis emphasised that forced marriage “must be placed solely within the domestic abuse/sexual violence debate” rather than as an issue of diversity – stressing that there is no honour in it, hence the term “so-called honour-based abuse” is used. Alexis explained how the general lack of information regarding perpetrators of domestic abuse is even more so for forced marriage and so-called honour-based abuse. She focused her presentation on the perpetrators of this form of familial violence. 

Neil Day from the Forced Marriage Unit then spoke about the work of this organisation and his work in tackling forced marriage involving adults with learning disability. 

The link directs readers to further information including the government’s national Multi-Agency Practice Guidelines on Handling cases of Forced Marriage, available as a PDF and Multi-Agency Practice Guidelines on Forced Marriage and Learning Disabilities.

After lunch, the intensely illustrative Ted Talk by Jasvinder Sanghera was shown, Founder of Karma Nirvana, who described her and her sisters’ experiences.

Your tutors, study groups, other professionals and supervisors are available to talk to about these complex issues. Remember, be a learner and engage in the debate.

To help process the information and learning from it, time was spent in small groups discussing both Jasvinder’s sister’s story and Shafilea’s, reflecting on these questions:

1. What signs were there that both young women were being pressurised into a forced marriage?

2. At what point could agencies have intervened?

3. What should professionals avoid doing?

4. What could have been done to protect Shafilea?

The final speaker, Julie Paget from Plymouth and Devon Race Equality Council described a local safeguarding situation which helped o revisit survivor’s perspectives in the light of learning from the day.

The Rights of Women organisation also provide a wealth of information on their website regarding forced marriage and the law:

The day concluded with a group discussion focussed on any specific changes in attitudes and our reflections on these:

• Did you have any preconceptions about forced marriage and honour-based violence? What were they?
  
• Have your attitudes towards forced marriage and honour-based violence changed? How? 
  

Learning Together Event feedback

Participants were asked for feedback on the event, starting with an appreciative inquiry question - 'What worked?'.

Responses included:

• Very informative and personable first speaker; excellent information regarding challenging cultural/religious justifications for forced marriage.
• Breadth of different perspectives, national to local: interactive.
• Examples and TED Talks really brought issues home: good to know the law around this; good interaction with participants; excellent speakers.

Read the full feedback