‘Crimes of the Community’, the Centre’s recent report on honour-based violence in the UK, was mentioned in a New Statesman article, Thursday 27 March, calling for the criminalisation of forced marriage to tackle honour-related crimes.
Criminalising forced marriage is the “first step” in dealing with honour killings, the article’s author, Ziauddin Sardar, said. “Making forced marriage illegal will send a strong message to those who maintain this obnoxious tribal custom that it has no place in contemporary Britain.”
Sardar also identified the need for a unified government strategy – encompassing schools, the police and airport staff – to identify and protect potential victims. For example, “airport staff should be able to spot girls who are being forcibly carted off to India, Pakistan or Bangladesh to be married off”, he said.
Sardar’s suggestion comes after the Home Affairs Select Committee investigating the issue of forced marriages decided in March to expand its enquiry after concerns that some of the 2,000 children missing from school registers may have been taken out of education and forced to marry abroad against their will.
Sardar went on to say that challenging the concept of honour, however, is at the root of tackling honour-based violence. Honour killings and forced marriages are based on cultural – and not religious – ideas, which originate from tribal areas of India, Pakistan and the Middle East, he added.
Sardar said he believed that undermining the concept of tribal honour is crucial to eliminating honour-related crimes. “The notion that honour has anything to do with the female body should be erased by the basic education of every Briton of Asian or Middle Eastern heritage,” he said.
Comments (2)
Agree, Wally. Like Yasmin Alibhai Brown, Sardar the 'sceptical Muslim' is all over the place. Call it cognitive dissonance, taqiyya or dissimulation - he/she is reflecting the double standards of modern Muslims in reacting to clearly off-the wall practices of Muslim communities or statements of the Quran.
Then again, maybe they're just thinking?
Think on! Think further! Have faith in reason.
Posted by M Clyde | March 28, 2008 10:40 AM
Posted on March 28, 2008 10:40
Bizarrely, Sardar, in the course of a Guardian article by him on faith schools, made it clear that he regarded the British prejudice against first cousin marriages as irrational. In fact he seemed to find it an altogether admirable institution. This from a man who, at one time anyway, liked to put himself forward as a Muslim commentator on scientific matters - the high incidence of congenital defects in certain UK immigrant populations is well known. Since I'm fairly certain that it is probably in a majority of cases that it is a marriage to a cousin that is being imposed on a young person, I think he is in a dubious position on in this area.
Posted by wally | March 28, 2008 1:17 AM
Posted on March 28, 2008 01:17