Forced Marriages Among British Sikhs

[Prem]

How prevalent are forced marriages amongst Sikhs in Britain today?

We probably think that it is mostly a problem for Muslims in Britain but I know it still happens amongst us. Jasvinder Sanghera is a Sikh woman from Derby who escaped from a forced marriage and runs a refuge in Derby - you can hear her shocking life story here.

She has been acting as an advisor to the government who have plans to outlaw forced marriage which have been published today.

My question is - is it dying out amongst Sikhs or is it still the same or is it rising?

What are your personal impressions?

Secondly, what can we do as young British Sikhs to help stamp out this crime - if we can mobilise the Respect for Guru Granth Sahib campaign with direct action - why can we not carry out direct action to protect our sisters who are being victimised and forced into marriage or Sikh sisters who are being battered by their husbands?

I particularly address this question to the Kaurs on this website - can you imagine the power you have to positively change the lives of Sikh girls who find themselves in this situation?

Also, shouldnt Sikh organisations here, freed from the caste-feudal-pindu culture of our parents and grandparents, positively campaign against this practice - and should not young British Kaurs help in domestic violence and forced marriage refuges?

We complain when we are cussed by the mainstream society for being backwards - we should not let them taint Sikhi by association with these backward practices.

Can you imagine the power of a progressive Sikh youth organisation that campaigned against this kind of thing in the name of Sikhi?

What do you all think? I particularly want to hear from the Kaur's.

Prem

[Prem]

The reason why I ask this question is because I see so much righteous energy and eagerness on this message board - and I think it would be great if it was to be

channelled into combatting bad practices within our community here in the UK.

[Balwinder Kaur]

well-said prem. .. forced marriages... they bring much unhappiness...and yes it would be great if such righteous positive energy translates into action. :wub:

[gupt_paapi]

girls who are raped, then punished by their families because they’ve ‘allowed’ it to happen.

WOT IS DIS?! dat is y gianis can assualt our sistas n get away with it. coz the gals r too scared 2 tell their parents, who r soo narrow-minded theywill blame their own GALS! ridiculus. wt can we do abt it???

[Prem]

K_51NGH

Its not just gianis who harass our sisters - I am talking about Sikhs in wider society - why should we as British Sikhs accept the pressure that comes from families to force girls into marriage? We are always quick to criticise Pakistani Muslims in this country for their backwardness, but what are we doing to counter the same bad things in our community?

And what do people think about whether this kind of thing is dying out amongst the Sikh community? What are your personal impressions?

[Balwinder Kaur]

Honour Killings...for whatever reason...here's my input.

WHY ???....

women are supposed to be subservient to the dominant hierarchy and basically left unable to claim their rights to equality enjoyed by other women in modern, Western societies....same goes for women growing up in western societies but from an asian cultural background.

These “honour killings” are derived from expectations of women in society which reflect tribal and patriarchal traditions which are longstanding in nature.Such expectations of women in society are held and perpetuated by both sexes. As such, most women therefore condone such “honour killings” as part and parcel of life and such women are usually responsible for the groundwork of an “honour killing”...which is sooooo sad

HOW CAN WE CURB IT???

unfortunately, there's no clear idea how it can be curbed...this is akin to the plague of the caste system...we're all conditioned to a large extent to accept the gendering of the importance of reputation/izzat and its associated repercussions arising from its deviance. the best we can do is raise awareness, thanks for bringing up the issue prem. :wub: ...and mobilise a team to look into these issues and setup a taskforce as effective as R4G to try to keep such problems in check.

My 2 cents

[SSM]

All parents are obviously different and what we have to ask ourselves is WHY are people forced to marry someone they do not like.

Sometimes the parents want their son/daughter to marry abroad (I mean India) because they can show the relatives that their daughter is in their 'control'.

Or because their daughter is about to run off with a Sikh who happens to be tarkhan and they are jatt so they wont be able to show their face in the Sikh community ( I mean the jatt community) if she marrys him.

Or the girl has simply gotten out of hand and is in more than one relationship.

Other reasons I have not come across yet.

Waheguru ji ka khalsa waheguru ji ki fateh

[fists_of_fury]

Forced marriages NO NO, but u gota look at it some rents force thier kids to marriage cos they think they gona do puteh kaam or they gona get married really late and they fear sometimes they wont see thier grandchildren etc they care from thier point of view but the culture clash makes things really messy.

I think basically some apneh do it for a reason eg more and more sikh gals getting in to <banned word filter activated> and running of with pakistanis etc and then becoming pregnant n den der so called love of live leaves them with nothing, parents hear about this and see this right so they think if they get the SLIGHTLEST hint their daughter about to do something that will do behzti of thers they either dis-own them or just force them to get married to some-one i think this is wrong. education is the foward way, we need to educate our elders about how western physcology and thinking/culture influences thier kids and sometimes might explain why things are going on and if they apply the same kharkoo punjabi mentality to a western problem so to speak, it will make matter much worse.

Or because their daughter is about to run off with a Sikh who happens to be tarkhan and they are jatt so they wont be able to show their face in the Sikh community ( I mean the jatt community) if she marrys him.

Okay why couldnt u just say diff caste bro/sis, and why does it always have to be the jatts implacing/following, the caste system i dont see no jatt named gurudwaras i see other caste gurudwaras why? why do a large amount of ppl have a problem with jatts on this site?

My neighbour found out the girl was about to run off with her boyfriend so they sent her to India, took her passport away and forced her to marry a guy that was actually really nice to her. Then they had 3 kids, and they moved to the UK, then he started drinking and now he really does beat her for no reason.

If she had run off with the guy she liked, she would still perhaps be a drug addict and be disowned by her family.

To be honest both lives are not great but she is actually happy that things turned out this way rather than that!  Some women think it is ok to go thru this!

Very sticky situation one thing i cant stand is women beaters if u know it going on stop it, just kick the shi* out the husband a few times show him how it like break his knees or something just give him a taste of wat it like to be in that situation soon see if he does it again.

Sorry for any offence, didnt mean any

Wjkk Wjkf

[SSM]

soz abt the jatt thing, I'm a 'jatt' myself but only used that example cos it was the only one that I know causes a lot of probs.

erm cant help neighbour, she has moved and I never met her, heard abt her life from her mum who told my mum .

But ok we can educate ppl, but u get proper educated men beating up their wives, and if someone tries to help then the woman sometimes doesnt want ur help, well she does but she cant because he'll jus tell her to go and then the prob is where does she go without losing something, its ridiculous that men can do this, I mean even amritdharis, I mean get a life guys who do this, ok ur wife is annoying u, she shouts too much , she complains, no reason to punch her

Just want to throw all those men together and set them alight, happy burning to them.

One guy beat up his wife quite a few times, I talked to the guy and he was saying how he would never in his life raise his hand so when she leaves and tells me why he says that she made him but he wouldnt have otherwise, this is like an educated guy born in the UK, u just wanna grab him and hit him against the wall till he bleeds but he is a strong guy so I didnt do anything. And then these guys cant understand why the wife leaves them , and if she is imported samaan then its ok to hit her cos she aint really a human being now or is she?

And most guys I know that have hit their wife is either cos of the mum in law saying to them :wub: and they do :wub: or they are having an affair with a 'modern' girl so dont need to care abt the wife now do I?

Forced marraiges come down to the izzat thing right but then the prob is take away the izzat thing and we got a prob, thats what keeps families together and means kids grow up in a sort of healthy environment and then they can lead normal lives, contrast to broken families where single parent unemployed or whatever and kids more liekly to turn to drugs etc.

But just thinking, can domestic violence really totally disappear? You can change forced marriages part but this one is hard, I mean even goray go thru it and they dont look at izzat in the same way as us.

Waheguru ji ka khalsa waheguru ji ki fateh

[DivineJourney]

u are talkin here of caste system....isnt that ppl who dont approve of inter-religious marriages fall in the same line...like in our religion its always insitted by so called sikhs that they wont marry wid non-sikhs liks muslim, christian . they insist that they shud get converted to sikhism and only then they can marry each other.....they are apeing the muslim in this way..arnt they????

Love