Forced marriage is criminal, but criminalising it is not the best solution

This article is about how the UK is facing and attempting to tackle the problem of forced marriages in the country and whether or not criminalizing it is the right answer.  An estimated 8,000 young people were forced into marriages in the UK in 2009, and its not just the Muslim communities involved, concerned and confused.  The laws that are under debate whether to put in place like the people in the communities have to distinguish between arranged marriage, the agreement between two people to be married through their families picking, and forced marriages where one or both of the persons involved are against the union.  "A forced marriage is a marriage conducted without the valid consent of one or both parties where duress is a factor."  The article went on to say that "Forced marriage is not even treated as marriage in Islam. For marriage to be valid in Islam, there must be consent of parties which is duly witnessed. The Prophet of Islam annulled a marriage which was conducted forcibly".  The biggest concern however is how to tackle the problem and the fear is that criminalizing it will only drive victims in to further hiding where the authorities will be unable to help victims at all.
I feel this article is very important to families of the US as well as around the world.  These types of marriages completely take away from the health, happy environment conducive to raising families not to even look at the kinds of physical and emotional damage it can inflict on all parties involved.  This is a pressing issue facing the families of today, thought by many top be ways of the past, the issues obviously still remains. Not only for the sanctity of marriage and the family structure.  The more this issue is brought to light and the more it is addressed the sooner I feel we as a community will be able to limit these occurrences and punish those family units in charge of forcibly enslaving couples to unhealthy lives that haven't chosen.





Andrea N Ward
10/12/12  10:42pm

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/06/2012622112715670229.html