WOMEN AND FORCED MARRIAGE IN SCOTLAND

help them are completely shut off from any possibility for social connections. As Ishbel White
relates the story of another young woman in a forced marriage:
‘What was most horrendous for me was to see was very young brides married to
very elderly men. …and I just say gosh, is that her husband? She’s got hardly any English
and she’s eighteen and her husband is what, sixty something? I’ve seen a few of them…
and I mean, who’s going to consent to that?...but the community somehow condone this.
And they’ll not necessarily befriend her either. Which I suppose in psychological terms you
could describe that as “if you’re unhappy with your own lot, why should other people be
happy?”…she came into a well-established [BME women’s] group but the women didn’t
say anything to her, didn’t offer any kindness to her.’
Furthermore, even women who have managed to resist and/or escape a forced
marriage often find themselves in equally toxic situations: ‘Men also have pressures to marrybut
they can escape much more quickly. And we often see the wives of such men at
Shakti…because the abuser then is the entire family, her in-laws, her own family, because she
wasn’t able to keep her husband.’ (Mridul Wadhwa, Shakti Women’s Aid)
For many forced marriage survivors therefore the situation becomes one of “damned if
you do and damned if you don’t”. Not seeking help means a lifetime of abuse and unhappiness,
while often, seeking support equals ostracism, complete isolation and in some cases, honourbased
violence to repair the perceived ‘shame’ brought upon the woman’s and/or the man’s
family. Even where no violence has occurred, very often women live with the fear of being
seen by other members of their communities if they do escape – as they are too frightened to go
beyond the area they know (frequently very small). On occasions where women who escaped a
forced marriage have relocated away from their husbands and in-laws, they are still struggling
with isolation, poverty, lack of education and employment, childcare and housing difficulties
completely on their own. Even when relocation has been successful and women are reaching
out in an attempt to rebuild their lives, they still have to live with the knowledge that they have
left their husbands, regardless of the circumstances of their marriage. Being a divorced woman
for any reason is associated with the stigma that a woman has failed her marriage by not trying
hard enough to make her relationship with her husband work. This then becomes what defines
a forced marriage survivor’s existence which leads to ostracism, bullying and exclusion from
community life.
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