WOMEN AND FORCED MARRIAGE IN SCOTLAND

Access to justice
‘Isolation is the first and biggest obstacle. For many of these
women the contact they have with women’s groups and other
support structures are a critical part of their surviving the
experience’ (p.15,’ ‘A choice by right’).
This research has revealed many reasons for which women are reluctant to come
forward and seek help with Forced Marriage issues. These can be separated into three levels:
First are problems that concern the woman alone which can be individual, but many women
have them in common. Second are issues that arise from the community, and these could be
based on factors of tradition or migration. Finally, the third level of obstacles women face
when seeking justice for a Forced Marriage situation relates to factors external to the woman
and her community and/or unique to mainstream services:
I. Barriers internal to the woman:
a. No awareness of Forced Marriage: According to our research, when women approach
an organization for support, they do so, most often, because they are unhappy. Very
often they do not name what is happening to them as ‘Forced Marriage’ either because
they do not know the term or because they consider their experience in their family or
community to be the ‘norm’. This is a point of contention between BME women’s
services and mainstream providers- whereas the former take an intuitive approach
informed by cultural know-how, often mainstream services expect the woman herself
to describe her issue as ‘Forced Marriage’.
This can be particularly difficult when statutory guidelines and government reports
take this approach, such as for example ‘A Choice by Right’, whereby ‘…the working
group states that the starting point should always be the perception of the individual.
They know when they are being forced to do something against their will and a
person’s cry for help should be the trigger for a range of appropriate responses’
(p.18). Our argument, and a finding of this research remains that women often do not
identify the issue as clearly as this report expects. In the words of Mridul Wadhwa
(Shakti Women’s Aid): ‘There are a lot of people out there who don’t realize that
what they’re going through is forced marriage and even if they do realize then they
don’t know how to ask for help.’
b. Where to go/whom to trust: Very often the case for the youngest or least integrated
survivors (for example those who migrated to the UK in order to marry). There are
practical issues of not knowing whom a woman can talk to, in what organization, and
whether she can trust them.
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