It takes brave teachers to say and do more…also Kids know more than we are allowing here .its all around them….. violence is raised on our TV sets, in general media etc…by pupils in schools…Certainly teenagers are exposed to information more today?

Informing young people of 'choices' applies….often through their parents value of what this means…as much as anyone else telling them. It is very very hard to deny your parents values and wishes for you, because you want to belong, not be rejected.

Handling the posibility a marriage against your will,when your parents say 'all will be well' can mean its easier just to say yes…because how can your parents be wrong?…if they are wrong,surely they will support the difficulties later? ( you dont know at this stage that they wont be able to do that in most cases)

The govt taking the step to educate and legislate in some cases agaist forced marriages ,is one step to start to make changes in communities who remain silent on this subject. The next step is to make better provision fpr those who need it…to escape those dreadful situations. Young mena dn women often worry about where they will go, and how they will be supported, and these areas still need looking at…as provision of this lkind is still very thin on the ground.

Schools can provide information and inform young people..if they are not doing that perhaps they dont feel the Govt would support them enough?

Communites can undermine teachers through informers in schools, as can councillors and governors. Perhaps we need to see schools having clear policies with regard to these issues,and womens aid and organisations such a KN need early on, involving taking some of the responsibility of school being informers…because they fear what would happen? Cultural sensitivity = fear. Takes strong heads and support higher up in education and childrens services, and dare I say resources ?

I agree with you- schools do need to talk more about domestic violence in general. And I don't deny that it is a difficult and violent topic. But in classes like PSHE and Citizenship (or whatever they are called this week), there is an opportunity to do so.

Much better helping those within to make changes from within.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year BTW

Put up posters in the right places in Urdu, Bengali, Somali and so on, offering lakhs – if not crores – of tax-free rewards and the information would start flowing in!

No problem!

I had totally forgotten about her wearing a stab vest in Peckham!

Posters up in the right places in appropriate languages offering lakhs, if not crores, of tax-free cash. Who could resist such a blandishment?

Of course, the predictable gang of 'Community Leaders' would squeal about victimisation and racial targetting. Which peers would be angriest? Guess!

Which is why McBroon and the Harperson would back off sharply and think up an alternative meaningless policy initiative to capture the next day's headlines, like sending Lord Mandelswine and his 22-thousand-quid Patek Philippe watch around the poorer parts of London to show how well Labour can reward its loyal supporters.

Just an idea.

As for the number of prosecutions? Surely that depends on how many charges have been laid in front of the CPS? Or are you suggesting that Ms Harman has gone around paying people to break the law so that the CPS can prosecute and Ms Harman can claim the kudos? Ah no, you are suggesting maybe that Ms Harman has paid the police to ignore any and all claims that FGM has occurred? On the other hand … it could just be that no accusations have been made … oh dear.

As for your funny (in the sense of pathetic rather then funny Ha!Ha!) referral to McBroon – again I take it you are referring to Gordon Brown PM. Funnily enough this thread is actually started by an article that details exactly what the government has done with regards to that. The discussion (that is the process by which diverse individual exchange ideas) following the article holds various suggestions including whether what has been done is appropriate, sufficient or not. Read it … it could clarify some issues for you.

And as for the percentage of Muslim and Sikh votes (after all, once they can vote they are no longer immigrants as such but nationalised residents) … I reckon they are hoping to get as many as possible of all votes all over regardless of the ethnic/cultural background of the voters. Most parties would be hoping for that given the nature of Democratic Elections.

When you have a case, let me know …

Longer than anyone can remember.

How many prosecutions have there been for aiding, abetting, participating in or paying for Female Genital Mutilation during the period the Harperson has had her job?

None.

Has any real effort been made by McBroon's gang to stamp out honour killings and bring the perpetrators to justice?

No.

What percentage of the Muslim and Sikh immigrant vote does the Labour Party hope to harvest at the next election?

At least 80%.

Case closed.

“It is important to underline the universality of violence against women and its causes, because we are increasingly observing a worrying trend towards singling out certain types of violence and essentialising certain cultures as the source of the problem.”

Yakin Erturk, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women

“By developing an effective human rights approach to honour killings it could be possible to move away from the ˜gender trap’ of cultural relativism within the liberal democratic discourse on multiculturalism.”

“There is nothing ‘honourable’ about honour killings”: Gender, violence and the limits of multiculturalism

( Veena Meetooa and Heidi Safia Mirza, 2007)

Hannana Sadiqui, Co-ordinator of Southall Black Sisters

Southhall Black Sisters underscore the need for honour-based violence to be framed around the domestic violence and violence against women agenda to avoid honour-based domestic violence inviting an eroticized response and also to ensure that specialist services are not prevented from accessing domestic violence funding and resources that may be available.

There is another reason why killings are not discussed in schools, and it's because schools struggle to discuss brutal murders -children and young people come to school to learn maths, science, and some citizenship.

I am the product of British multiculturalism which takes in my educaton in Tower Hamlets in London and the access to wider youth work provision that compensated for the pressures of low/non-wages in many families around us. I am very proud of it, though recall at times being sick to death of teachers assuming girls like me were going to get an arranged marriage from a village in South Asia. I can imagine a re-run of my schools days now, the assumption (s) would be (a) you'll have an arranged marriage (b) a fetched marriage (c) you're at risk being honour killed. (d) all of the above. Lovely. Instead of teaching literature and physics and some work on the world being sacred and we must respect and value everyone on the planet, the school should be busy doing the work of political pundits and the police?

My bottom line is for policies to be evidence-based. The figures tell it all : the figure of 12 'honour killings' a year in the UK is horrific, as is the figure of 2 deaths a week from domestic violence in the UK. Name and shame the schools that don't do enough as we claim? Wage and mount a campaign on gender-based violence which will get us out of the trappings of gross inaction and current paralysis on such violence.

The process of socialisation is a product of family, school, societal influences, and stumping out violence against women can't be done through schools alone. Stop blaming the schools, stop blaming multiculturalism, start facing up to the real and complex challenges to rooting out such aggression and violence in families in our society.

I've been fighting sexism (from individuals and institutions), and racists and fundamentalists from all sides since I've been in a nappies, like many other women i know in fact, so with due respect, this focus on multiculturalism as the harbinger of all evils is mis-placed. Killings don't happen because schools embrace a version of celebrating multiculturalism that is diversifying school meals so they include samosas and curry.

Families, communities, the state – they all change, and they change from measures of reform, changes in social attitudes, they change because we stigmatise and stand up against women's inequality.

They don't change because we blame and stigmatise diversity. That's the political project of people who hate difference, and don't want to see any social change.

Stop ghettoising 'honour killings' from the very real and invisible poison that is misogyny and sexism and violence against women.

http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2009/12/po…

See what I mean? Plus a few Kurds and Afghans, of course.

My children have been raised to think for themselves, and are neither' taught 'my thoughts or the 'thoughts' of others. Like you they have the freedom to seek and debate and find answers for themselves. I have not been bitter nor have I shown my first family in a bad light to them, otherwise what would that say about me? Its a complex situation that has required careful handling but with as much honesty as possible.

Thankyou Reza, I agree with your comments of how things really are on forced and arranged marriages. It had not occured to me as a child that they were any different, as I saw so many 'arranged marriages' as forced in so far as choice was not given,and the bride would be 'raped' in effect on the night of her marriage. Id be told that this isn't the case now…but is that totally true? Im prepared to accept that many arranged marriages now have an element of choice, but back then…you rarely saw the woman raise her head at the wedding ceremony to look at her husband,nevermind look forward to sharing a bed with the man that night.I also knew that my siblings saw the marriages as one way to leave the drugery of housework and subservience in the family home, in effect an escpae was sought in marriage. I might make it sound terrible…but to be honest with you all…the picture I give is not unknown now either from women I have spoken with escaping forced marriages.
Multiculturalism isn't a word I like, exactly for the reason you give Reza…it represents for me all those wise white men and women I met whilst I was growing up to the present time, who wanted to defend 'my culture' for my own sake, as well as theirs..what utter rubbish.

' Fear' of any sort does not necessarily allow for healthy change, and any change is not possible without loss. I count my loss as the door to freedom for my children and generations to come.

Hi Reza want to play word games with me directly? Denialist? I've walked the walk on that shit against women from a very tender age. I think you need to take that pea-sized brain that's so het up with multiculturalism for a ride.

Just because someone disagrees with you, doesn't mean they take less offence at the murder of a sister.

Thank you for your moving account.

I found this particularly interesting:-

“…we were 'groomed' the only way that it was possible to be for arranged marriages to men we would never have known before we married.”

In Britain, liberal cultural relativists like to convince themselves that there is a very clear differentiation between ‘arranged’ marriage and ‘forced’ marriage. For them, the former represent “the vast majority” and are ‘good’ and should be supported, the latter represent “a tiny minority” and are ‘bad’ and should be discouraged.

Clearly you understand that it isn’t this clear cut.

‘Arranged’ marriages only become ‘forced’ when the son or daughter refuses to marry the person chosen for them. In many cases, the son or daughter knows that the consequence of refusal will result in becoming an outcast, as you became, or worse: a victim of HBV.

Therefore, many of the ‘arranged’ marriages that multiculturalists choose to ‘celebrate’ as part of the ‘diversity’ that ‘enriches’ British culture are actually ‘forced.

And as usual, multiculturalists end up promoting the misery that thousands of people like you suffer each year.

Some people on these pages claim that the cultural attitudes behind ‘forced’ marriage are addressed in schools. Sadly, I know that this isn’t the case. Certainly not in London.

And I know that subjects such as ‘arranged’ marriage are fairly taboo for fear of causing offence.

Our schools should be addressing this area confidently and head-on. They should be teaching children that they can choose whom they marry. They should be making it clear that their parents have no right whatsoever to expect that they will be choosing their spouse. They should seek to embolden children so that they may challenge their parents.

But schools won’t do this. Not whilst we have ‘multiculturalism’.

Not whilst we have moral relativists like Miriam and denialists like Halima within our political class.

Not whilst we have people for whom the destruction of countless lives is a price worth paying for a refusal to single out and criticize the attitudes prevalent in specific cultural groups.

Thanks for writing on this site and reflecting on what is a difficult and upsetting situation, despite being so many years ago.

That is a sad tale you tell. On the basis of this:

but change may come from men and women making a stand for themselves and their children into the future.

I would like to think you have a family of your own and teach them your thoughts rather than the thoughts of others.