Examination of Witnesses (Questions 280
- 299)
THURSDAY 21 FEBRUARY 2008
JAGDEESH, IMRAN,
AJMAL, ANITA,
KIRANJIT AND
MEENA
Q280 Mrs Cryer: We are going to move
on to asking you about what sort of help you got or you did not
get from schools, employers and the Health Service. I will start
off with the first two, which are addressed again to all of you,
and then Martin Salter is going to ask specific questions of three
of you. Were you ever taught at school about forced marriage or
domestic violence and your choices? What would have helped you
to understand your options and where to seek help?
Kiranjit: Can you repeat the question
again, please?
Q281 Mrs Cryer: Were you ever taught
at school about forced marriage? That is the main thing? Did they
ever at school teach you about forced marriage and what you could
do to defend your own position?
Kiranjit: No, never.
Q282 Mrs Cryer: It is to all of you
so does anyone else want to answer?
Ajmal: They never taught us in
school about forced marriages or domestic abuse. They were teaching
you about drugs, alcohol and sexually transmitted diseases but
the forced marriage bit you never heard of it.
Q283 Mrs Cryer: Why do you think
that was?
Ajmal: Because I think they were
afraid of upsetting the Asian community. They did not want the
parents or the family members pointing out that the schools are
going against them, like, "My daughter has run off because
you put a poster up and but we were okay at home." Things
like that.
Q284 Mrs Cryer: Does anyone else
want to say anything?
Imran: I did not get anything
to do with domestic violence or forced marriages. If there was
advice or support at that time then I would have sought it.
Q285 Mrs Cryer: Can I just ask you
all now about your GP, your doctor. Were you able to seek help
from your doctor or other health workers? If not, why not? Were
there other professionals that you felt comfortable speaking to?
Anita: When I cut my wrists, they
reported it to my GP and then the GP gave me an appointment and
I went to my GP, and he said to me, "Why did you do these
things?" He knew my husband as well because my husband would
also go to my GP. When he beat me I had some bruises on my back
and my face and that is why I went to my GP. He just wrote down
a note. First when I went there I was scared to tell the truth
because in hospital my husband said to me, "If you say anything
to anyone I will kill you when you come back home." I did
not say anything in the hospital. I said I was depressed, that
is why I cut my wrists. When the GP asked me this questions I
told the truth and when he wrote it down in the notes I was scared.
I said, "Why are you writing notes?" He said, "It
is for your safety and when there is a problem then I will give
the report to the police when you need a report." At that
time I was so scared. I thought maybe the GP would tell my husband
that "your wife told me these things." At that time
I did not speak English very well. Somebody said to me, "Go
to Black Sisters at Southall, they speak English, Punjabi, Hindi
everything." I went there and they helped me. They arranged
a lawyer for me. They helped with my statements and everything.
When I was depressed they called me. Sometimes the police called
me and I could not properly understand English. Then I would say
to them please can you speak slowly and I will give you an answer.
Then I called the Black Sisters at Southall and told them the
police had called me and they had something to tell me. Then they
would call me there and then I would call back the police and
they would talk to police to see if there was a problem.
Mrs Cryer: Thank you very much. Your
English is improving—it must be—you are doing well.
Martin Salter is going to ask you individual questions. There
is no-one wanting to say anything else? You have all said what
you want to say on this particular part? Martin will be talking
about schools and other things.
Martin Salter: Who went to school in
England? Imran, did you go to school in England?
Imran: Yes.
Q286 Martin Salter: Jagdeesh, did
you go to school in England, and Ajmal?
Jagdeesh: Yes.
Ajmal: Yes.
Q287 Martin Salter: You have probably
seen in the papers that we have been questioning why schools are
reluctant to promote the services of the Forced Marriage Unit.
There was a case in Derby where Karma Nirvana has been campaigning
for a long time to get proper guidance. I just want to explore
with you this reluctance to offend the elders or offend the community,
which was very much at the heart of what you were saying, Jagdeesh.
If a school in the current situation, without proper guidance
from the Department of Education (and that is what we are hoping
to get) took it upon itself to actively promote advice services
to girls or young people at risk of being forced into marriage
against their will, how do you see communities reacting to that?
Do you think they would start to take their kids away from the
school or do you think there would be attempts to take over the
school governing body and challenge the policy? Play it out for
us as to the risks that schools would run in these situations.
Jagdeesh: I think there would
be a combination of pressure of the kind that you have mentioned.
In Surjit's case for example certainly there was a Metropolitan
Police poster put up of disappearance and reward in a west London
Sikh faith school
***
Whilst the Metropolitan Police had convinced the
head teacher to put the posters up to start with, the other side
put enough pressure on the head teacher to then dramatically remove
them. So it is a demonstration of the power of individuals I would
say. If enough individuals are able to make enough of a fuss,
rather than a community make a fuss, which is often the misguided
term we use, I think schools frighten themselves into thinking,
"Let's withdraw from that and let's not invite the fuss.
Q288 Martin Salter: What do you think
Imran and Ajmal?
Imran: For me it is like saying
you are upsetting families but I do not see that. You have posters
on drug use and domestic violence; what is wrong with forced marriage
posters? At least kids and pupils will know there is help out
there to get some help. We have to stick them up in toilets so
that they just take the numbers so the families do not see the
posters.
Q289 Martin Salter: That is what
you have to do?
Imran: That is what one school
did in Stoke-on-Trent. They put it up in the toilets so the families
do not see them in the hallways and get upset. We have posters
of the Forced Marriage Unit with numbers you can just tear off.
Q290 Martin Salter: I am going to
invite you to agree with me, if you would, or not: would you go
as far as saying that a school funded by the taxpayer has got
no business refusing to put up something advertising a government-funded
advice service for victims of violence? They have got no right
to do that?
Jagdeesh: I would agree strongly.
Imran: I agree strongly.
Q291 Martin Salter: What is your
take on that, Ajmal?
Ajmal: My take on it is that it
could be saving somebody's life if that poster is up there. That
way that child would know there is help. For nine out of ten if
there is no poster and there is no number to ring on forced marriage,
they are just going to agree to it and go along with it. The individual,
whether it is a male or a female, as a human being they have got
a right to know.
Q292 Martin Salter: My last question
really is to everybody. It is very clear that for the vast majority
of people that do not come from cultures where forced marriage
is a reality, this is an area of huge ignorance. Margaret and
a few others have done some work on this. We are doing work on
this which we hope will be quite ground-breaking and challenge
things but by and large your average teacher or doctor or health
visitor out there really has not got a clue and is very nervous
about being seen to upset traditional values. How do we challenge
it, because it seems to me there is a job of work to be done not
just in these communities, not just in schools but amongst the
population as a whole to understand the difference between an
arranged marriage and a forced marriage and how you spot the warning
signs?
Jagdeesh: It will not happen very
quickly. Over years there needs to be a programme of awareness-raising
amongst these very sectors to explain what a forced marriage is
and the characteristics of it. Over the course of years professionals
need to be inducted into that training and they need to be given
that awareness so that should they come across a patient, client
or whatever, they can pick up on the signs if they are implicit
or explicit.
Q293 Martin Salter: Do other people
agree with that?
Imran: Yes, and also my main issue
is to get it to the community leaders, the imams in mosques. I
am not a practising Muslim but I go every Friday and while the
imam will say, "It is Ede this day, it is Christmas this
day, you have to read this and read that," they have never
once talked about forced marriage. If they did it would make a
big change.
Q294 Martin Salter: Kiranjit, you
went to prison and you would have told your story to lots of women.
Did they understand in prison what was going on in your community?
Kiranjit: In prison the prison
officers were very good. They understood arranged marriage. It
was not a forced marriage but I was forced to live within the
marriage. I could not get divorced. I tried my best to get out
from this situation. I think it is education in schools and more
awareness. Doctors and police—there should be a training
centre and they should be trained properly and things like that.
I am telling my sons, "Don't do anything to your wives,"
so they understand. I say, "Whatever happened to your mum,
do not do it to your wife or girlfriend." I would not force
them to go into an arranged marriage and they understand.
Q295 Martin Salter: Has Anita got
anything on this?
Anita: I agree with her. Because
I read her story and I watched the movie, and seriously—
Q296 Martin Salter: Perhaps we need
to see your movie as well. Ajmal?
Ajmal: Obviously you will get
a small minority of the public disagreeing and saying they should
not be put up, but it is a bit like speed cameras; everybody is
moaning about them but after a while they get used to the idea.
It is just like a normal poster. When they first get put up obviously
they will get a shock.
Q297 Martin Salter: Ajmal, I have
got to put this to you, it is more than posters; doctors and teachers
are trained now to see signs of child abuse. It is really the
point you are making, Imran. Are you not telling us that people
need to be trained to see signs of people being forced into marriages?
Imran: May I also say the guidelines
should be compulsory as well in health and education saying they
have to read them because otherwise they just get gathered on
the desk.
Martin Salter: I would bet my house that
our eventual report will conclude that there should be compulsory
guidelines.
Q298 Mrs Cryer: There are guidelines
that have gone out from the Education Department and the Health
Department to all schools. The question is do those guidelines
stay in a drawer and everyone ignores them or are the staff made
aware of them? You never know when it is going to crop up so they
should be aware of them. I am going to move on to immigration
issues and I am going to ask all of you a couple of questions.
We are running out of time and we might have to hurry a bit and
at the end I am going to have to run almost. Do you think that
raising the age for sponsoring a marriage or being sponsored for
a marriage from 18 to 21, which has been suggested and may be
brought in later this year would reduce forced marriages or would
it just push marriages back by three years and possibly lead to
girls being imprisoned in the subcontinent for those three years?
What do you think, would it help?
Ajmal: I think personally myself
it would help because it is going to put certain people off. They
are going to think twice if they had to wait until 18 and now
they have got to wait until 21. Obviously there will be pressures
on families that they cannot take that step.
Q299 Mrs Cryer: Do you think that
young men and women of 21 perhaps have a greater ability to withstand
pressures from their parents than perhaps someone of 18?
Ajmal: I think they will start
understanding things a little bit more because they will be a
bit more mature. At 18 they are just going to go along with their
parents still.
| 
