WOMEN AND FORCED MARRIAGE IN SCOTLAND

leaders, trapping women in these patriarchal structures. According to Ishbel White,
board member to Darnley Street Family Centre, this is particularly problematic in
Glasgow, where BME communities are considerably older and larger than other areas
of Scotland: ‘[BME GPs] are all single practice Asian doctors. Men. […] This is bad
practice. After the Harold Shipman killings in England that is bad practice. You’ve got
one person there doing everything with no checks and balances.’ She continued to
explain that due to the closeness of the communities, very often doctor-patient
confidentiality is breeched. Similarly, the familiarity between a young woman and/or
her family will often prevent her from seeing a GP from the same community if she is
concerned about sexual health or other intimate issues, which will further impact on
both her physical and mental health.
e. Male community leadership: The fact that most communities (religious, ethnic and
cultural) are run by men makes it impossible on the one hand to access the correct
information about women’s experience, and on the other to liaise with the community
in a way that represents all community members’ opinions equally. Similarly, this
patriarchal structure adds further pressure on women not to interact with men aside
from selected men who are deemed ‘appropriate’ (for example male relatives or
family friends). This often leaves women with only the resource of women-only
organizations to resort to.
f. Misconceptions about culture/religion/tradition: Although no religion in the world
condones forced marriage, there is a general belief that some religions do. Aisha
Zaveri and Ghizala Avan of Amina MWRC in Dundee and Glasgow respectively
expressed that there is a misconception that Islam supports Forced Marriage, and that
unfortunately seems to be a belief held both by the mainstream community as well as
Muslim women themselves. According to Aisha Zaveri, parents will often use religion
as an argument for forced marriage but in actual fact, she sees that as a
miscommunication between religion and culture: ‘Forced Marriage is completely
unacceptable in Islam, Islam does not accept any form of violence [against
women]…arranged marriages are accepted, they are a part of Islam…but divorce is
accepted…if a woman is unhappy in her marriage she can get a divorce…Islam
completely respects that.’
g. Inventiveness of Perpetrators: A. Phillips and M. Dustin (2004) raised concerns that
legislating against a particular practice can push it underground. It is conceivable to
argue that the limited reporting of Forced Marriage could be in part due to this: apart
from threats of Forced Marriage or actual ceremonies being carried out overseas,
coercion is practiced with such subtlety that it is often undetectable.
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