Sunday, July 5, 2009 | Reason : Interviews | print version

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Forced marriage: 'I can't forgive or forget what they did to me'

by Nina Lakhani - The Indepdendent UK

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/forced-marriage-i-cant-forgive-or-forget-what-they-did-to-me-1732170.html

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An NHS doctor from east London who was held hostage and forced into marriage has spoken for the first time about her four-month ordeal, during which she feared for her life.

Dr Humayra Abedin, who was freed from her vows on the orders of a Bangladeshi court soon after The Independent on Sunday highlighted her plight, described the humiliation and pain she suffered at the hands of her parents, some members of her extended family and nurses and doctors in a private psychiatric hospital in Bangladesh last year.

In an exclusive interview with the IoS, Dr Abedin told of the moment she was abducted: "My face was covered with a piece of cloth by men who told me they were policemen, before they carried me out into an ambulance which was parked outside the house. They held my arms and legs, carried me like a prisoner, while my parents stood in the background."

She was driven, kicking and screaming, to a private hospital, on the request of her family. During the journey, she was held down and gagged by three people as they tried to stop her shouting.

"This was the first time I thought, 'this is it, I am dying'," said Dr Abedin. "I begged them to stop." And so began the nightmare.

For the next three months, every morning and every night, she was forced to swallow dangerously high doses of powerful tranquillisers used to treat people with psychoses. She was kept locked in the hospital, constantly told she was a disgrace by staff and relatives, and denied contact with the outside world. But she could make it stop, so her parents and psychiatrist told her, if she agreed to give up her life in England, marry the man her family had chosen for her and stay in Bangladesh. She refused.

Last December, Dr Abedin was dramatically freed after frantic efforts – highlighted by the IoS – by lawyers in the UK and Dhaka, together with Ask, a human rights NGO, led to her release. The majority of victims are not so lucky; hundreds of missing schoolchildren each year are feared to have been married off abroad by their families.
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/forced-marriage-i-cant-forgive-or-forget-what-they-did-to-me-1732170.html

Posted: Sunday, July 5, 2009 | Permalink

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1. Comment #393460 by ev-love on July 5, 2009 at 5:04 am

“The whole incident has made me realise how precious and beautiful life is and it's made me stronger, so maybe it was my destiny.”

Oh dear.

ev-love

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2. Comment #393465 by neander on July 5, 2009 at 5:27 am

I can just hear all the religious apologists now. "But of course, we MUST respect the beliefs of these people."
Makes me sick that this can still happen.

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3. Comment #393472 by bartman on July 5, 2009 at 5:44 am

"It wasn't about religion; it was a cultural thing. In their eyes I was becoming too Westernised, too focused on my career and getting too old to be alone."

While religion might not be the root cause in this incident, it still keeps the people from coming to their individual conclusions and opinions apart from what the masses do or think. I except the acceptance of authorities, be it the society, a book or some god, to be deeply connected with the indoctrination done by religions. You can't blame this on either religion, nor on culture alone, it's deeply connected.

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4. Comment #393475 by maxpsycho on July 5, 2009 at 5:51 am

Absolutely revolting!

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5. Comment #393489 by Border Collie on July 5, 2009 at 7:08 am

Nothing done was about protecting her. It was all about protecting the perpetrators world view and exercising control and power. And, er, um, it is about religion.

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6. Comment #393527 by Alfster on July 5, 2009 at 10:06 am

You may like to read this 'Thought For The Day' from Moana(sic) Siddiqui from December of last year where she basically condones the kidnapping because it's ' cultural and a matter of family honour'.

Many of us wrote to both OFCOM and the BBC but were told it was an editorial decision by the 'Religion & Ethics' department...and that was it. Both OFCOM and BBC seem to condone kidnapping if it's due to cultural issues.

And it's not the first time Siddiqui has stated rather unsavoury comments on TFTD...but she's the Head of Islamic Studies at Edinburgh University so she must be correct.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/thought/documents/t20081217.shtml

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7. Comment #393563 by Ian Edmond on July 5, 2009 at 1:43 pm

Come on now, Alfster, don't be spreading such terrible falsehoods about Mona Siddiqui. It's Glasgow University that is blessed with her insights into Islamic Studies, not Edinburgh.

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8. Comment #393599 by ty90 on July 5, 2009 at 4:42 pm

Send in the SAS next time.

0r....maybe n0t.

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9. Comment #393641 by soul_biscuit on July 5, 2009 at 9:07 pm

A lot of commenters on the article are getting pissy about how "The Media" blames everything on Islam, when oppression like this is due to a "weakened and broken Islamic identity."

Uh, what?

If Islam is against oppression of women, then a lot of Muslims are doing it wrong, is all I'm saying.

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10. Comment #393664 by Bazar on July 6, 2009 at 1:43 am

"You can't blame this on either religion, nor on culture alone, it's deeply connected.

Exactly, Bartman. The two are components of a certain mindset, a cultural blueprint for how the world is and how the world should be. (I’m quoting Clifford Geertz from memory here.) If somehow the tumour of religion had been magically removed from Bangladeshi culture two years ago, the parents, the instigators and their accomplices would probably have acted in the same way, only this time without divine sanction.

All these notions about “honour”, “shame”, the “collective”, the “clan” or the “tribe” and the ensuing violent actions are elements of a “pre-modern culture”. It should come as no surprise that the actors involved in these nasty schemes can always find justification in the local religion, be it Islam, Christianity or what have you. Singling out religion as the main culprit here (is that why this story was posted on this site?) seems to me to be missing the bigger picture. Superstition is not the only enemy out there. What seems to be at stake here, is a complete overhaul of other, more “backward” peoples’ cultures, in order to make them conform to our notions of how to think and how to behave. That’s a lot to ask; history tells us that it won’t happen soon, at least not in our lifetime.

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11. Comment #393667 by CaptainMandate on July 6, 2009 at 2:06 am

"It wasn't about religion; it was a cultural thing. In their eyes I was becoming too Westernised, too focused on my career and getting too old to be alone."

Am I alone in believing this comment to be utter bollocks£

Every time I hear it it makes me sick. Of course it's a cultural thing. i expect it used to go on in europe in the dark ages as well.

It's a desperate attempt to suggest that anything bad about islam is nothing to do with religion. torturing non-catholics is a cultural thing too. we learned to stop doing it and still our society didn't crumble

drowning women accused of witchcraft is a cultural thing

enough of the "C" word already. It offends me

Without religion, the worst crimes of backward "cultures" would soon vanish

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12. Comment #393695 by dporter on July 6, 2009 at 6:06 am

This kind of abduction goes on in the U.S. as well. One of my 15 yr. old students was picked up after school by her dad who then handed her over to a 40 yr old Mexican National for a forced marriage south of the boarder. It took her 5 years to escape and make it back to the States. She could't even talk about what had happened, she was so traumatized.

The cultural aspect is locked up by the religious aspect. In many ways they are the same. Religion and political tyrants are both evil for the same reasons.

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13. Comment #393734 by aquilacane on July 6, 2009 at 8:01 am

It's part of my religious culture to kidnap people who participate in kidnapping other people for any reason. There, problem solved.

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14. Comment #394141 by PERSON on July 7, 2009 at 6:58 am

6. Comment #393527 by Alfster on July 5, 2009 at 10:06 am
So your objection is that whilst pointing out that human rights abuses originate in differences in culture she seemed to equate a morally neutral example of cultural difference with a morally reprehensible one?

You should realise these things are prepared very quickly based on the morning's news just before broadcast. I'd put it down to clumsiness in cobbling things together rather than malicious intent unless you can find other writing by her expressing similar sentiments to those you infer.

"What may seem like an insult to human dignity to many of us, a 33 year old woman being denied freedom to act in her own interests, is in her cultural context an issue of family honour where very often individual freedom is sacrificed."

This looks like clumsy phrasing. Is she saying she condemns it or not? It's not clear either way. Is she saying it is an insult to human dignity? Only seems like one? Seems purely like one, but other factors are involved? Is one but could be seen another way equally validly? It would be jumping to conclusions to infer her opinion without it being stated elsewhere more clearly.

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