Forced marriage

Here's a nightmare for an increasing number of British women of South Asian origin - perhaps as many as 300 a year according to the Foreign Office.

They are told by their family of a holiday, or perhaps a funeral or wedding, in South Asia. When they get to the old family home, mostly in Bangladesh or Pakistan but also in India itself, they are forced into marriage.

It's believed many cases go unreported with girls going through with the marriages for fear of dishonouring their family and being disowned.

Our South Asia Correspondent Navdip Dhariwal followed one British woman who escaped a forced wedding herself and who went to India for the first time to try to understand a culture in which it's acceptable for parents to force their children to marry.

JASVINDER SANGHERA:
It feels profound landing on the soil that my father was born on, and being one of the sisters that never made it to India because I ran away from home, and I'm here in my own right, as an independent woman, and I made it. It's awesome.

NAVDIP DHARIWAL:
Had life turned out differently for Jasvinder Sanghera this wouldn't have been her first visit to India. Her parents left for the UK in the fifties. Like their other daughters, they wanted her to marry a man from India.

SANGHERA:
I was born in Derby. I was the only daughter born in a hospital, my mum had all her children at home. She said I was different from the start, and I was born upside down, so I landed out feet first, so I was always different. I was fifteen at the time and I was in my final year at school. I had seven sisters, they all had arranged marriages. I watched three of them being shipped off to India when they were sixteen, sixteen and a half. It was my turn and I was shown a photograph of a man who I was told I would be marrying within less than two weeks. This is the man you will be marrying. I said no, Mum, Dad, I don't want this.

DHARIWAL:
But her parents continued making plans for her wedding. This is the house Jasvinder lived in at the time and where her family kept her locked in a bedroom.

SANGHERA:
Then one day I saw a window of opportunity. The door was open and I just ran out the front door. I ran away.

DHARIWAL:
Jasvinder made her escape through the town centre. She spent the rest of her teens sleeping rough on the streets, pleading with her parents to let her come home. They refused, telling her that in their eyes, she was dead.

SANGHERA:
In the community's eyes and in my family's eyes, because I'd done something dishonourable to them, I'm a woman that has no honour. I do. I have self-respect. But in their eyes, I've shamed them, therefore I'm a woman with no shame.

DHARIWAL:
Traditions and practices that originate in India impact on Asian women's lives in the UK. Jasvinder's here to get to the roots of those attitudes. It will help with her work running the Karma Nirvana refuge. It was set up to help British Asian women.

SANGHERA:
What happens here impacts on us in England. I believe that, and I want to find out if that is true. On average, we get 14 women a month contacting our project. Their experiences are linked to being an Asian woman. We see women fleeing forced marriage. We see women feeling suicidal, self-harming because of issues of honour and shame.

DHARIWAL:
Because of those pressures, many Asian women are reluctant or afraid to challenge forced marriages the way Jasvinder did. One woman who did turn to Jasvinder for help is Yasmin. Her parents took her to Pakistan. She was told it was for a family holiday. When she got there, she was told she had to marry the man they had chosen for her.

YASMIN:
[TRANSLATION]
I was scared, frightened. The first thing I thought was to try to get to the British Embassy, to get some kind of help to get out of Pakistan. But I didn't know a lot, and I didn't know where help was, so I went through with the wedding. My parents told me I had no choice. They took my passport off me and said, "you'll stay forever until you do this". So I went through with the wedding.

DHARIWAL:
That was four years ago when Yasmin was 17. She's now divorced and living in a refuge, a place her family won't be able to find her.

YASMIN:
[TRANSLATION]
My father had a gun in the house. He never used it, but he always said if we ever did anything wrong or put shame on the family or anything, then he would kill us, me and my sister.

DHARIWAL:
Jasvinder's been told the majority of forced marriages happen in Pakistan. But the number of cases the British High Commission in India has seen has doubled in the last five years. They've taken on extra staff to deal with them. Jasvinder is trying to help them reach more women.

SANGHERA:
Because of the family pressure being so great...

SUSAN WILSON
VICE-CONSUL, BRITISH HIGH COMMISSION IN INDIA:
So many people have said to us, I didn't know I could come to the British High Commission, I didn't know the British Government could help me, which makes me think there must be many more cases we can help and who need to be getting in touch with us if they have concern this may happen to them. We have the resources to expand if we need to. If the number of cases increases, we have been given the resources to expand, if necessary to include a shelter here, a refuge where the women could go.

DHARIWAL:
This is Punjab, where Jasvinder was supposed to get married. The links with the UK are strong. Many of the 500,000 British visitors who come to the country each year have homes and relatives here. It's the place the High Commission sees most victims of forced marriages. Surinder begged her mother not to marry her off to a man in Punjab. She eventually gave in to emotional demands and went through with the wedding. Her husband abused her, so she fled to Jasvinder's refuge.

SURINDER:
Even as the ceremony was going, it was going through my head, it's not too late, just walk away, but I couldn't. Even my mum was so happy at the time. She knew I didn't want to do it, I could see it in her eyes, but I think she was stuck as well. Most likely she was in the middle just as much as I was. It was hard for her.

DHARIWAL:
One way Jasvinder helps women at risk of being held against their will is by taking their passport and flight details before they leave the UK. It's up to the High Commission in India to rescue girls which they've had to do in Punjab.

WILSON:
Once we've rescued them, which normally takes three to four days, we bring them to Delhi. Then when they're in Delhi, they're usually only here for 24 hours. They're just so relieved that the pressure has been taken off them. They're often very frightened, because physical and mental abuse has taken place. They often don't know where to turn. Then they feel relief that they're in somewhere safe, somewhere they know that they're going to get assistance to return to the UK.

DHARIWAL:
In a Delhi Police Station, this is the challenging part of Jasvinder's trip.

SANGHERA:
So she's rang in to say that her husband has put hot oil on her and is trying to set her on fire.

DHARIWAL:
Confronting crimes against women, rooted in attitudes she fears are deeply engrained in Asian communities in Britain too. Here at the special Crimes Against Women unit, it's a grim picture. Female officers respond to complaints of sexual abuse, domestic violence, and attempted murder. It's a small operation. This one unit covers the entire city. It has limited success. It was two hours before they responded to this call. We're on our way to a hospital in response to a telephone call about a young woman who's been burned. We don't know whether it's a domestic violence incident or not. Really it's an opportunity for Jasvinder here to find out more about how the Delhi Police respond to cases like this.

INSPECTOR VEERA SHARMA
CRIMES AGAINST WOMEN UNIT, DELHI POLICE:
Generally there is a reason¿

DHARIWAL:
The officer seems to make excuses for domestic violence.

SHARMA:
After having liquor, she's beaten by her husband.

DHARIWAL:
It's this apparent tolerance of crimes against women that disturbs Jasvinder the most.

SANGHERA:
The processes in terms of our police and statutory sector are different. We give more commitment to the issue of it being a crime. Whereas here in some way, it's devalued because she's a woman, an Asian woman in India.

DHARIWAL:
This is the kind of case the inspector sees six or seven times a week. In one of the wards is a 24-year-old woman, she has 40% burns. Her mother-in-law brought her to hospital.

SHARMA:
She said she was in the kitchen and she was preparing milk for her daughter. She was wearing a garment and she doesn't know how it happened. The material fell and she burned from the front side as you are looking.

DHARIWAL:
We don't know if she's the victim of a crime. She insists what happened to her was accidental.

SHARMA:
She said my husband is very good, very nice to her, she's saying. You can ask her.

DHARIWAL:
The problem is women are reluctant to complain, often because their husbands or in-laws are responsible for the injuries.

SHARMA:
Sometimes there's some domestic violence, there's¿like this. Some are accidental like this. It was an accident. It was not preplanned.

DHARIWAL:
Jasvinder has her doubts, refusing to believe the authorities are doing their best to protect this woman.

SANGHERA:
This happens to a woman, we know, two or three times a week. It's about getting her back to the family and covering it over. You know, my husband was sick, she says. She's clearly¿I don't know she feels the need to defend how strong her marriage is to us. For me, that just rings alarm bells.

DHARIWAL:
The next day's visit is to a refuge. Here Jasvinder sees some parallels with her own work in Derby.

SANGHERA:
Women here in India go through the same things as Asian women in England?

CHANDRA PRABHA PANDEY
MAHILA DAKSHATA SAMITI HOME:
I'm sure, absolutely. You are talking about battered women, the same issues. I think they are worried over the same, you know.

DHARIWAL:
The women here are taught skills to help them find work and rebuild their lives. But placing them back with their husbands and families rather than encouraging them to be independent is the preferred option.

SANGHERA:
You said an option could be reconciliation with their families?

PANDEY:
That is our priority, Jasvinder.

SANGHERA:
But we don't do that with our women. That's one thing we don't do.

PANDEY:
Why? Because they don't want, you don't do it?

SANGHERA:
When they leave their homes, and they come to our refuge, they've made a decision to leave. So they want to start rebuilding their lives on their own with their children.

DHARIWAL:
Defiant and determined. The efforts of the Crimes Against Women unit to teach girls at college to stand up for themselves. But it's still not enough to help cast off the shackles that confine them.

UNNAMED WOMAN:
Delhi is not at all becoming safe these days. It's not at all safe. That's why we're doing this self-defence training.

UNNAMED WOMAN:
In India, women are treated as slaves. From birth to death.

DHARIWAL:
What's the view of Indian society of women like Jasvinder, who run away or defy their families? Is she accepted again?

UNNAMED WOMAN:
No. If her parents try to accept her back, her parents have to think about the society, what is their position in the society. Their position will get affected.

SANGHERA:
Some women say their families say to us, you're dead in our eyes. Is that what happens?

UNNAMED WOMAN:
Yes. They never talk to her again, whole life.

DHARIWAL:
It's the end of Jasvinder's journey. She reflects on how hard it was to run away from a forced marriage. And to confront her mother country about the way she treats her women.

SANGHERA:
India's opened my eyes on another level because the women here are second-class citizens, same as the Asian women I see in England. But in England, I would say we're scratching the surface and it's far worse because we don't actually see it. There's so much denial going on. The difference here, I can see it visibly. I'm Indian, proud to be Indian. I love everything about my culture. The practices that exist of oppression are not part of our culture.

Contact information for organisations that may be able to help you if you've been affected by any of the issues arising from Navdip Dhariwal's report on forced marriages in India

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This transcript was produced from the teletext subtitles that are generated live for Newsnight. It has been checked against the programme as broadcast, however Newsnight can accept no responsibility for any factual inaccuracies. We will be happy to correct serious errors.