Forced marriage case study: Dilemma of family duty or personal safety

WHEN Tara was 17 her life was turned upside down after her family told her to marry a 40-year-old man in India whom she hardly knew.

When she protested her parents and wider family tried to intimidate her into going ahead with the ceremony.

Tara, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, said: “This went on for days. Every day mum raised the question of marriage and I kept saying no.

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“She would get angry and throw things, shouting at me saying, ‘Our izzat (honour) is gone, it is washed in the water’ and ‘You are influenced by the gori’s (fair skinned girls), I asked you not to mix with them.’

Eventually they wore her down. “It was so easy to say yes,” she said.

“At the time I did not know what marriage is – I thought if I just say yes, they will stop fighting.

“One day when I was coming back from school I was asked to go straight to my house and that I was getting married.

“When I arrived there, I found my mum, dad, uncle, his wife and some other people.

“I went through the ceremony and said – Qubul – and signed some papers (I think).”

She added: “I started to realise how serious the matter was and got really scared.

“I couldn’t cope with the pressure any more so one day I disclosed my fears to my teacher. They told the headteacher who called the police.

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“The police were really good, they are nothing like I had imagined or heard.

“Before I met the police I was so scared of them. I would never have called them for help.”

Eventually, she decided that she would have to flee.

“The pressure from my family for me to go to India was getting harder and harder and one day I realised I had no other option but to leave home if I wanted to escape this marriage.

“I called the police, who took me to the refuge.”

However, even then her ordeal was not over.

“I missed my mum and dad, they are not bad people,” Tara said. “They are a very nice couple, my dad buys me nice clothes and we are looked after very well.

“I missed my mum’s cooking.

“After about six weeks, one day I called my mum, because I just wanted to hear her voice.”

Her parents assured her they were sorry and just wanted her back, but she soon realised nothing had changed.

“For the first week everybody was nice and nobody mentioned anything about the man or his family.

“In the second week my mum started to be nasty to me, she used to shout verbal abuse and blame me for dishonouring the family name.”

Then one day the whole family cornered her in the house.

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Tara said: “I can remember every one of them was shouting at me, reminding me what a bad girl I had been by leaving the home and what the consequences had been.

“I started to feel shaky, sweaty, and weak and had a kind of fit.

“Next thing I knew was that I was in the hospital. I thanked my stars. I thought now I could get help.”

However, she remains torn between missing her family and the fear of being married against her will.

“How confused I am between my safety and loyalty to my family,” she said.

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