WOMEN AND FORCED MARRIAGE IN SCOTLAND

situations, cases have been referred to Saheliya whereby a woman was dragged to her
own wedding ceremony where she met her future husband for the first time on location.
V. Mild Psychological Coercion: This stage includes all arguments that can be used to
convince a woman that this is the right choice for her. Statements such as ‘you won’t find
a better match’, ‘you’re not pretty enough’ and ‘you’re too old’ can be used repeatedly to
convince the woman to say ‘yes’. Similarly, arguments can be brought forward invoking
the obligation of the daughter to go along with an arrangement her family made long ago:
‘we’ve already promised and we can’t go back on our word’.
VI.
Moderate Psychological Coercion/Blackmail: This stage can often be difficult to
distinguish from the previous one. For the purposes of this research, we had to separate it
as it symbolizes the point at which coercion stops being about ‘what’s best for you’ and
starts becoming motivated by fear of what her ultimate rejection of a particular suitor will
mean for the rest of her family, particularly the loss of their status in the community. This
includes statements intended to demean the woman’s self esteem and confidence such as
‘nobody else will take you, you should be grateful he wants to marry you’, ‘you’re
useless and no good to do anything else, at least if you get married you can be useful to
someone’ and ‘if you don’t marry him you can leave my house because I don’t want a
disrespectful daughter, I raised you better than this’.
VII. Severe Psychological Coercion/Psychological Violence/Trauma: At this end of the
psychological coercion spectrum severe threats both to the woman and to her loved ones.
These are aimed to magnify the consequences of rejection of the arrangement beyond
proportion, for example ‘you’re giving your mother cancer’ or ‘if you say ‘no’ your
father will kill himself’. Along the same lines are threats to the horrible alternatives that
will transpire such as ‘I will send you back to (country of origin) to marry an old man’ or
‘if you don’t marry this man you will die alone a horrible death’. As Mridul Whadhwa
puts it, ‘in most of our cases we see a lot of emotional abuse…that is more subtle. But in
many cases the force is very clear: you do this or the consequences will be horrible.’
VIII. Deception and/or Abduction: Deception and abduction become more prominent in late
adolescence and early adulthood, when a young woman is coming of age and is
beginning to attract the attention of potential spouses. One of the most common scenarios
that concerns many young women in the UK every year, is the possibility of never
returning from a holiday to the home country. Very often a genuine holiday has been
planned, but the arrangement is made there and then and the woman is made to accept it.
There are also occasions where a wedding has been planned secretly in another part
of the world and the young woman is completely unaware of it, thus finding herself
trapped upon arrival. This becomes particularly difficult if she is taken to remote parts of
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