A mother has become the first person to be jailed under Australia’s forced marriage laws, for ordering her daughter to wed a man who would later murder the 21-year-old.
Sakina Muhammad Jan, who is in her late 40s, was found guilty of coercing Ruqia Haidari to marry 26-year-old Mohammad Ali Halimi in 2019, in exchange for a small payment.
Six weeks after the nuptials, Halimi killed his new bride - a crime for which he is now serving a life sentence.
On Monday, Jan - who pleaded not guilty - was sentenced to at least a year in jail, for what a judge called the “intolerable pressure” she had placed on her daughter.
Intimate partner abuse is a terrible tragedy.
I don’t understand this law though. Don’t billions of people practice arranged marriage? Isn’t this just enforcing western culture norms on communities arbitrarily?
Personally, I’d like to know if there is a higher rate of spousal abuse in arranged marriages when controlling for other factors. Has this been studied in Australia?
Edit:
ANSWER: It is not arbitrary. It is addressing a real problem of abuse and trafficking. Studies have been done in partnership with the communities potentially impacted.
Here is one research report from the Australian Institute of Criminology: “The cases of forced marriage examined for this study revealed consistent themes… Marital life was strict, severe and traumatic. Domestic violence, in all its forms, was commonplace—physical, sexual and emotional abuse (actual and threatened), imposed social isolation and financial manipulation—and perpetrated not just by the husband but also by the husband’s male and female relatives.”
However, it is hardly cut-and-dry. Here is another study from FECCA, which represents the interests of ethnic minority communities: “Ultimately, the current data suggests that the prevalence of forced marriage is either low or unknown in Australia… Criminalisation may drive the practice further underground, and there is no data to suggest that criminalisation has reduced the number of instances or referrals of forced marriage.”
Ah yes, enforcing norms like ‘human rights’ and ‘consent’ on other cultures. So chauvinist! /s
Look, I understand your point. That’s exactly why I would like to know is this is supported by actual research or if it’s just an “ick, brown people do things differently.” Let’s face it, BBC has an abysmal history of jingoism, and Australia has a powerful Right Wing. Who sponsored this legislation?
“Brown people”? There are plenty of brown people around the world who don’t practice arranged marriage. Also, it was very common in Europe prior to the Enlightenment (I may be off on the exact timing).
It has nothing to do with racism and everything to do with human rights, as the other person said.
Mostly among nobility, given that it was quite similar in different places (e.g. Rome (cum manu) vs. the Germanic tribes (Muntehe)) it’s probably something that got imported by the Proto-Indo-Europeans. It never was the sole form of marriage, and much less common to unheard of among people with less political power to inherit.
That form getting outlawed was past enlightenment (16th and 17th century), at least in Germany the right of a woman to annul a forced marriage was considered as established in the 18th century… before that it was probably hit and miss, depending on suzerain, etc. Love marriage becoming the ideal was only in the 19th. That’s not to say that people didn’t marry for love earlier, but that was the point where economical considerations were put second place at best. Also couples of course have eloped since time immemorial. Also nobles. Say, Mary Tudor.
And then we have to factor inheritance practices into it – again, in Germany (a, by and large, stem family culture) single heirs were the norm (until that was outlawed you can give a single kid at most 50% of everything nowadays), with the property transfer generally being done while the parents were still alive: Transfer of the estate to a freshly married couple (one of them your kid) in exchange for support in old age, archives are full of transfer contracts like that. If you wanted to marry someone your parents couldn’t stand it was very possible to hear “then your younger sibling is going to inherit”. The non-inheriting kids would set off elsewhere, get a stipend to learn a trade, become clergy, or be employed by the inheriting sibling.
see edit above
As a practice, it is far more common in south and Central Asia and Africa, and is more culturally significant in those places. However, I was wrong to equate arranged marriage and forced marriage. Australian law makes that distinction, and research supports it.
Fuck your research.
Does each person willingly consent to being in the relationship? Yes or no. That’s the only fucking thing we need to know.
Does consent mean something different depending on skin color? The fuck?
Go far enough left or right and y’all MFs care way too much about skin color…
Okaaaaay, you clearly did not look at what I posted.
You seem to be rebutting the idea of legal protections with ‘but their culture’.
Pretty close? Is it proper to assume violence is cultural?
deleted by creator
Yeah, it’s like the abolitionists just enforcing their arbitrary “non-slavery culture” on everyone else all over again.
When will people learn?
Why are you obsessed with the color of people’s skin and indifferent to their humanity? Should children be beaten, abused, mutilated, sold off to be married just because their parents are part of some abrahamic cult?
Daily reminder that religion is a monstrous evil.
Arranged marriages usually come with all kinds of sexist norms the women are expected to follow. It’s normalized when it shouldn’t be.
Arranged and forced marriages are two very different things. Plenty of places where arranged simply means “your parents send you on a date to get to know someone once in a while”.
As to spousal abuse rates: Irrelevant because it’s wrong to coerce people in the first place.
Arranged marriage is not forced marriage. The arrangement is that you meet the potential suitor via family, and if things don’t work out that’s it. You’re not supposed to force or coerce a marriage, at least that’s how it is in most South Asian or Middle Eastern families who practice this
Edit the horror stories we read about in the news are usually about lower income or uneducated folks, most middle class or upper class families practicing arranged marriages don’t go around forcing things if a match doesn’t happen
I appreciate your reitetating. That was a mistake I made in my original comment. They are not the same and I should not have conflated them.
Western country western laws
These are good questions. Not all arranged marriages are forced or abusive. It seems alien to me as an American, but some people value having their family vet potential partners.
See edits above
Your edits do add additional context and information, but they miss the broader point
Forced marriages (sometimes called arranged marriages) are a breach of consent regardless of abuse or trafficking being involved. Having your parents set you up with a date you are free to ignore or choose to engage with is one thing, having them pick who you will marry and when without your consent is another. Regardless of culture, you don’t get to violate others consent.
It’s far too late for edits. You said your peace and you should either accept the fallout or delete what you posted.
That’s uncalled for. I posted my initial reaction, which was mostly misguided. I invested the time and effort to research and learn about the issue and mostly found answers to my questions.
I edited the post to clarify and avoid potentially misleading anyone who may have been of the same mindset. Simple as that. It would be far more dishonest to delete the post and act like I didn’t have questions about the situation. Instead, I did the work to learn a little and share that knowledge with others through a well-sourced response. If you don’t appreciate the effort, while investing none of your own, that’s your own business.
Also, it’s “Say your piece.”
It did cause an interesting discussion. I hadn’t even considered the distinction between forced and arranged. All in all, I appreciated the edit.