Category: Women

Mariam was a sixth-grader in Toronto when her family started pressuring her to get engaged. They sent her on a summer trip to their native Pakistan, ostensibly to study but actually to meet a fiance chosen by her aunt. When she protested after returning home, she said, her mother kept insisting and wearing her down.

“She cried a lot. She prayed loudly to God that I would change. She refused to speak to me for days. She told me the family’s honor was at stake,” recounted Mariam, now 20, who asked that her last name not be published. “I wanted to finish school and go to college, but at times I almost said yes, just so she would stop crying.”

Finally, when she turned 17, Mariam decided to leave home — an unthinkable act in her culture. With encouragement from a women’s rights group, she slipped out early one morning, taking a small bag. No shelter would accept her, because she had not been physically abused, and she felt racked with guilt and loneliness. Eventually, though, she found housing, friends and a measure of emotional independence.

Today, Mariam is active in a growing movement in the United States and Canada to promote public awareness and legal protections for victims of forced marriage. She visited Washington last week as part of a nationwide tour organized by the Tahirih Justice Center, a legal aid and advocacy group in the Virginia suburbs that helps immigrant women facing abuse.

According to officials at Tahirih, a 2011 survey of social agencies and other experts reported as many as 3,000 suspected or confirmed cases of forced marriage in the United States over the previous two years. They said the practice is found in many immigrant communities, especially among South Asians, from the Washington suburbs to ethnic enclaves in cities including Houston, New York and San Francisco.

Kathana R., 24, left and Aruba A., 20, right, rehearse, “When We Leave,” a play that explores the complexities of family violence, including forced marriage, at a Busboys and Poets in Washington. (Amanda Voisard/For the Washington Post)

Nevertheless, they said, there is no U.S. law against the practice, and laws that could help victims in some regions, including the District and Virginia, are more geared to victims of kidnapping or physical violence. Moreover, many shelters and welfare agencies are unfamiliar with forced marriage and ill-equipped to help young women fleeing it.

Many traditional societies observe the custom of arranged marriage, in which family relationships matter more than individual choice. Such weddings forge lifelong alliances between families and are seen as ensuring that young couples have compatible backgrounds. The intended bride and groom meet, spend time together and consent to the union.

Forced marriage is less common and illegal in most countries, but it is harder to define or prove. A daughter may be ordered to marry someone she may not know or like, such as an older relative, a stranger or someone who is owed a debt. If she is extremely young, she may not know the arrangement has been made. Even if she finally agrees under pressure, activists assert that such marriages are neither fair nor legitimate.

“Families use a range of coercive tactics, and there is a lot of emotional blackmail,” said Jeanne Smoot, the legal director at Tahirih. “If a mother says to her daughter, ‘You will be dead to your parents,’ or ‘This will kill your grandmother’ or ‘I will kill myself if you don’t marry him,’ ” Smoot said, “that is as coercive as a gun to the head.”

Tahirih has been working for the past three years with a coalition of women’s groups in North America on the campaign to curb forced marriage. They met with White House officials last week, asking for national legislation similar to a new law in the United Kingdom that makes forced marriage a crime, and they have put on dramatic readings and skits in five U.S. cities this spring that tell the stories of girls like Mariam.

Although better laws can help young women resist family pressure or report physical abuse, they can also backfire in complicated domestic situations and add to public prejudice against certain immigrant groups. Many young victims of forced marriage are loath to bring charges against their parents because of the shame it would bring.

“It is important for us not to criminalize all of South Asian culture, to suggest that the West is a safe place where girls flee from terrible oppression,” said Aaliya Zaveri, an official of a South Asian women’s aid group in New Jersey called Manavi. “In cultures where family duty and honor are so important, this is not what the girls themselves want.”

Chenthoori. M, 22, enters the “Honoring Our Heartbeats: A Tour to End Forced Marriage in the U.S” event at a Busboys and Poets in Washington. (Amanda Voisard/For the Washington Post)

What victims do want, the advocates said, is a way to escape from intolerable, even if well-intentioned, pressure to marry. But they often face dead ends, because most shelters and service agencies do not view such pressure as an abusive emergency and local laws fall short of offering full protection, even if a girl is about to be flown abroad to marry against her will.

In one such case in Virginia, Tahirih officials said, a high school student sought help from school counselors, saying her parents had arranged her marriage back in their homeland and were punishing her for resisting. The local child protective services office declined to take her case, so Tahirih lawyers appealed to a judge to protect her. The girl was sheltered in a private house, and the judge confiscated her family’s passports.

“Legally, we were skating on thin ice,” said Layli Miller-Muro, executive director at Tahirih, explaining that child protection laws in Virginia, Maryland and the District are geared more for kidnapping and trafficking than family conflicts. “If the judge hadn’t bent over backwards, we could have been charged with aiding a delinquent minor. This is why we need laws that are clearly designed for scenarios of forced marriage.”

In a case in Texas, a counselor said she could do nothing to help a young woman who called as her parents were preparing to fly her to Pakistan for a wedding. She came back married and called the counselor again, saying her parents were now pressuring her to sign immigration papers for the groom.

“They wanted her to sponsor a spouse she had never wanted to marry,” said Nusrat Ameen, the case manager at a women’s legal aid center in Houston. “They stopped paying her school fees and took away her car. She keeps calling me, and I tell her to be assertive about her rights, but there are a lot of gray areas and strong cultural feelings that you have to obey your parents. It can be very hard to define abuse.”

In many such families, disputes over early marriage can be part of broader generational conflicts in which Asian-born parents seek to control and protect their Western-raised daughters, who yearn for modern freedoms such as dating boys, staying out late, and wearing makeup and party clothes.

But advocates at Tahirih and other agencies said they have made few inroads into family counseling or public education within immigrant communities, partly because of cultural resistance and partly because they place a higher priority on rescuing or protecting the young women who call their hotlines for help.

“Many times, families are not interested in intervention,” said Usha Amachandran, who runs a women’s aid program in San Francisco. “In the South Asian community, no one wants to talk about things like domestic violence or forced marriage. But we are in the business of talking about uncomfortable things, and it is very much needed.”

In Washington last week, Mariam and several other young women performed skits at a Busboys and Poets cafe in the District that reflected their contradictory feelings about parental demands. One played both herself and her parents calling her a slut and a “bad daughter.” Another held an imaginary phone conversation with her mother, saying she believed “family comes first” but insisting that if she stayed at home and acquiesced to marriage, “I’ll have to bury part of myself.”

Mariam said she eventually overcame her guilt and sorrow about leaving home. She was able to enroll in college and earn money making clothes, and she plans to become a fashion designer while keeping up her activism. She never fully reconciled with her parents but said she keeps in touch with them “on my own terms.”

“For me, it is important to talk to victims who are in situations like I was, to let them know they do have options,” she said. “The system failed me, and it fails many girls.”

 

KABUL, March 8: A group of Afghan men marched through Kabul on Thursday to draw attention to women’s rights by donning head-to-toe burqas. The men marched under a leaden sky, with the bright blue burqas falling over their heads down to muddy sneakers and boots.

The demonstrators, associated with a group called Afghan Peace Volunteers, said they had organised the march ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8.

“Our authorities will be celebrating International Women’s Day in big hotels, but we wanted to take it to the streets,” said activist Basir, 29, who uses one name. “One of the best ways to understand how women feel is to walk around and wear a burqa.”

The march by about 20 men drew a mixed reaction.

Traffic policeman Javed Haidari, 24, looked bemused and slightly annoyed.

“What’s the point of this?” he wondered. “All of the women in my family wear burqas. I wouldn’t let them go out without one.” Several of the men said wearing a burqa felt “like a prison”. They carried signs reading “equality” and “Don’t tell women what to wear, you should cover your eyes”.

Some men stopped to watch, laughing and heckling. Some were confused; others said women’s rights encouraged prostitution.

Some female passersby were also nonplussed. “We don’t need anyone to defend our rights,” said Medina Ali, a 16-year-old student wearing a black veil that showed only her eyes and woolly gloves on a cold morning.
“This is just a foreign project to create a bad image for the burqa and Afghanistan. They’re trying to make those of us who cover our faces feel bad.”

An older woman, who wore a burqa herself, was less affronted. “My husband and son tell me I should take my burqa off,” said Bibi Gul, who thought she was around 60.

“But I’m used to it. I’ve been wearing this for 35 years.”

Islamabad, March 8 – Challenging male dominated politics in Jhang was not an easy step. Taking a lead role in a conservative Afghan society was not a bed of roses. Speaking against female genital mutilation was no simple task. Branding women’s transformed role through advertisements was not a welcome step. Putting women in active political roles in Sri Lanka was not entirely rewarding. Using music for social causes wasn’t a sweet song either.

Six women – from Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the US – shared their success stories, fraught with challenges but also with achievements, with a 300-strong audience at the International Women’s Empowerment Conference-15 in Islamabad on March 6 as part of Women’s Day celebrations.

As the panelists took turns, it emerged women’s oppression keep on changing its form with the change of places; the only thing that remained permanent was some women’s resilience and courage to fight back.
The panelists included former ambassador and minister Syeda Abida Husain, Scroll.in journalist from India Aarefa Johari, lecturer Tania Aria from Kabul University, attorney-in-law in Colombo Selyna Peiris, Sara Ali a businesswoman from Bangladesh and musician-cum-social activist from US Mary McBride.

Abida Husain started off her political career as a Member of the Provincial Assembly (MPA) in the 1970s. After Ziaul Haq’s martial law, she took part in local council polls and was elected ‘chairman’ of the Jhang District Council.

“Some people asked me to use ‘chairperson’ instead of ‘chairman’ and I told them that let me chair the men, not persons,” Abida said.
During her political career, she launched several development projects such as farm-to-market roads, schools and health facilities in rural areas, which ultimately brought about development and empowerment for women. But the more obvious and clear mark her politics left was a woman’s courage to come out for equal rights in a male-dominated society.

Aarefa Johari has taken it upon herself to raise awareness against female genital mutilation (FGM), a common, ancient and religious practice among her Dawoodi Bohra community in India and elsewhere.

In the community, every seven-year-old girl has borne this ritual, called khatna or circumcision. She said that like other girls, she had to undergo this ritual. With the passage of time, the pain and memory of the horrendous surgery faded, Aarefa said, adding that education helped her realise that the future generation must not go through the painful experience. She says women from her community have a strong belief that religion allows FGM which suppresses women’s sexual pleasure.
Aarefa says strangely most men are unaware of the practice as only clerics and women have carried the practice forward “to save their virtue”. She said the frustrating thing was that clerics have chosen not to respond to facts, which she says she and other people have started debating.

“The satisfactory part is that I’ve stirred a debate and people are listening to me, though in disbelief,” Aarefa said.

Selyna Peiris says she believes in women’s economic independence. She runs handlooms where 1,000 women are employed. She says she belonged to a privileged Sri Lankan family and at the age of 16 flew to Britain and returned after receiving a law degree.

After launching and succeeding in handloom products, Selyna decided to go and ask women what they needed.

“As the country was passing through a post-war era, I decided to take civic liberty causes and set up a legal aid centre for women,” she said.
Unlike Selyna, Tania Alia has seen displacement and migration from Afghanistan to Pakistan, the Taliban’s anti-women regime and education in schools which lacked in facilities from chairs to drinking water. Tania said she was only two when her parents decided to leave Afghanistan for Pakistan and returned to Kabul 13 years later. She remembers when she was traveling with her mother in a bus and a Taliban squad pulled in.
“A Taliban militant started beating a woman for not wearing her burqa properly,” said Tania.

Time went by, the Taliban regime fell and the new government took over. She said the initial days were hard when her family home had electricity for five hours a day after every two days. Tania attended university and completed her graduation after which she was offered a job as a lecturer at the same institution. With her ceaseless struggle, Tania has secured scholarships of prestige and has worked with Trade Accession and Facilitation for Afghanistan (USAID), International Relief Development (USAID) and Public Finance Management Reforms (World Bank). Her journey goes on.

Sara Ali, a Bengali businesswoman from the advertisement industry, went for social activism when she married a man who was not of her religion. After breaking the taboo, she decided to launch awareness among women to understand the issues of their own daughters.

Sara used social media as a tool to reach millions of women. “Female contraceptive was an untouchable subject, but not anymore,” she said, explaining how she used social media to help women improve their health through birth control.

Mary McBride, unlike most singers, talks at social fora and writes songs that incorporate social themes. Her band is on international tours most of the time during which she uses music to highlight issues confronting women.

Six women, six stories — but that is not the limit. Every woman has a story, of successes and failures, narrating a journey that documents her struggle to claim her space in a society which may have had little to offer her in the first place.

Kabul, March 7: Malika Yousufi lined her bike up alongside her teammates on a lonely road outside the Afghan capital, getting ready for her weekly training ride away from the disapproving stares of Kabul.

Yousufi is part of Afghanistan’s Women’s National Cycling Team, a group that has been breaking new ground for women’s sports in Afghanistan and pushing the boundaries of what is — and is not — acceptable for young women in the conservative country.

Under the Taliban in the 1990s, women in Afghanistan were excluded from public life, banned from going to school or stepping outside their home without a male family member.

Women’s rights have made gains since the hardline group’s ouster in 2001, but observers worry that progress is at risk as violence against women persists and women remain under-represented in politics.

“We are resolved to keep our commitments to women and we will protect and reinforce our achievements,” President Ashraf Ghani’s office said in a statement released after the president made a speech ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8.

While Afghanistan’s national men’s cricket and football teams have enjoyed the spotlight, women’s sports have made more halting progress, with athletes facing family pressure and patchy public support. Last year, the women’s cricket team was quietly dissolved amid Taliban threats and a shortage of players.

The women’s cycling team is pushing ahead, despite not having been paid for several months, a problem for many Afghan athletes.

To clock the distances needed for training, team members pile their bikes in cars and drive outside the capital, where their uniform of loose-fitting tops and long pants won’t draw stares.

During the ride, the coach leads the pack in a car.

“The coach is like a shield for us,” Yousufi said. “If he wasn’t there, we couldn’t ride.”
Even so, drivers sometimes shout profanities at the riders, and their team captain grapples with a back injury from a crash after a man on a motorbike reached out to grab her.

Abdul Sadiq Sadiqi, the coach and president of the Afghan Cycling Federation, is not overly concerned.

“These are people who don’t let their children go to school,” Sadiqi said.
More than 40 women train with the group, and the core team has competed in several international competitions.

On a recent morning, team members leaned into the curves in the road, whizzing past a checkpoint where a group of soldiers watched them pass.
Yousufi said she was determined to become the first Afghan woman to compete in the Tour de France, a cycling race dominated by men since its first event in 1903.

“Nothing will stop us,” she said.