| | Forced arranged marriages (as seen on 4corners)Page 1 of 1 | http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/03/29/3466537.htm
As the women say on this show that it's a cultural norm and they point out that they will likely be ostracised by most of the community, is it wrong to say that islam really has no place in western societies? | |
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| Forced arranged marriages (as seen on 4corners)
Posted: 4/3/2012 1:41:54 AM | it's a cultural norm and they point out that they will likely be ostracised by most of the community, is it wrong to say that islam really has no place in western societies?
That would be one interpretation - if they will be ostracised by their islamic community for not adhering to the rules, then islam has no place here because we would respect their freedom to choose.
Another interpretation would be that precisely because western society will not ostracise them based on their marital choice, people of islamic faith should be welcomed into western society so that they will then be free to choose not only their spouses but their faith as well. Should they and future generations choose to remain islamic and to adhere to the tradition of arranged marriages then that would be consistent with western societies' commitment to freedom of choice and therefore the religion of islam and western society are not incompatible. So the key is education. They must make their choices freely and in full knowledge of what their rights are under our laws. | |
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| Forced arranged marriages (as seen on 4corners)
Posted: 4/3/2012 1:49:36 AM | In Australian society, any woman (muslim or not) should be free to choose who they marry. That aside, I see it as rape if a woman is forced into marriage and the man wants to go for it.
In other words, this practice is condoning rape. | |
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| Forced arranged marriages (as seen on 4corners)
Posted: 4/3/2012 1:51:10 AM | this practice is condoning rape.
Which practice? Freedom of choice? I don't think so.
If a woman is convinced she has no choice, then there is a lack of education of our legal system and basic human rights. | |
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| Forced arranged marriages (as seen on 4corners)
Posted: 4/3/2012 2:02:05 AM | | Show me someone who thinks they have no choice and I'll show you someone who has no understanding of the law. Under our laws they are free to choose, so no-one is condoning forced marriage. That there is a tradition amongst some islamic-based societies of forced arranged marriage doesn't mean that the religion of islam itself is incompatible with western society. Only that particular tradition. | |
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| Forced arranged marriages (as seen on 4corners)
Posted: 4/3/2012 2:09:45 AM | gingerosity
That's why I am saying "watch the video.". I never claimed our laws this or that.
Our laws may not take it but the ways around it does. It tricks teenage females. | |
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| Forced arranged marriages (as seen on 4corners)
Posted: 4/3/2012 3:30:50 AM | ................................................. arranged marriages.......
MAYBE SOMEONE SHOULD
AS MOST OF US HERE, HAVE BUGGERED IT UP MORE THAN ONCE, MAYBE MUMMY & DADDY SHOULD HAVE arranged THIS TOO | |
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| Forced arranged marriages (as seen on 4corners)
Posted: 4/3/2012 3:42:54 PM | I hate Islam as much as I hate ANY religion , invisible friends should be left at childhood.but-
does Islam have a place in western society, yes !! If law abiding citizen wish to practice Islam or jelly wrestling why not!
Does forced arranged marriages have a place in western societies , NO . its rape and thats that.
Does forced arranged marriages have a place in middle eastern societies, No. its still rape but hubba hubba hubba slightly better that than death.
Arranged marriages , now crusty old and other societies could be onto something, you raise your daughter up . you give your child the best, while you go with out earthly possessions, they turn 15, they shack up with some trailer park dude and next thing your son in law is called 'cletus
Arranged marriages can bypass this... or atleast the parent is to blame
but when an arranged marriage goes south and the siblings dont wont a bar of it what then.. thats when it becomes wrong to FORCE somebody into something.
it is a real problem here in australia, but thankfully our government is not from an Aladdin cartoon, although Abbott does look abit like Jaffar, there has been enough forced marriages in Australia to get the federal govt to draft laws against it.
Show me someone who thinks they have no choice and I'll show you someone who has no understanding of the law.
the tittle of the 4 corners program
What happens when young, educated, Australian-born girls are forced into unwanted marriages - often with relatives overseas?
One girl in the story, her dad asked her to go back to the see their family in india, only after she got there her extended family informed her she was getting married to her cousin. as the marriage guy was tunning up.
it would take strength to run away from your family, and more so to run away from your community- how ever thats what I did, and couldn't wait to do.. 3 days after school I'm off, see ya mum n dad..going to make a career in the cotton chippin business NOT | |
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| Forced arranged marriages (as seen on 4corners)
Posted: 4/3/2012 5:08:42 PM |
Arranged marriages are one thing, but if they become forced marriages where one or both parties object, that’s another thing entirely. Personally I could never condone anything that makes a person feel forced into making what should be a purely personal choice (and who to marry definitely falls into that category) no matter if the excuse is ‘culture’ or ‘tradition’ or ‘religion’.
However it might be quite tricky to distinguish where the line between arranged and forced lies, because it pretty much depends how the individual feels about it.
Some people would perhaps go along with it relatively happily… much like those kids who just go along to whatever Christian church their parents take them to, maybe whinge about it a bit, but in turn end up taking their own kids to the same church because they apparently have no real issue with the fact that they had their belief system chosen for them and are content to perpetuate the process. I personally find that dodgy, but you don’t hear a lot of mainstream objection about those people being indoctrinated into a particular set of traditions. So for some, the arranged marriage might feel no more or less than that…it just ‘is’, for them, and if that’s the case then in one sense it could be said to be ‘forced’, in another sense, not.
Whereas of course other people facing an arranged marriage might indeed object. And amongst those who object, there will be some who will stand up for themselves and say no, but also likely to be others who are aware that whilst the law here entitles them to freedom of choice about saying ‘no’ they are also subject to specific cultural pressure…and if you faced being ostracised by your own family and community, that’s a lot of emotional and psychological pressure right there. So they may end up going along with it anyway, regardless of their legal rights…and that’s pretty much forced, albeit not legally forced, and not physically forced. But I guess even amongst those feeling forced by this kind of pressure, there’d be some who might come to terms with it, whilst others might live in a constant state of misery. Possibly people in westernised society might assume all those in arranged marriages would fall into the latter category there, but really we don’t know for a fact that all people in arranged marriages felt forced, or are miserable about it… unless they say so. Of course if the force used is physical, it’s far more obvious. I guess each situation could only be assessed case by case as to whether ‘arranged’ had crossed into ‘forced’.
But OP…regarding your question about whether Islam has a place here as a result of this…. it’s not as if Muslims have any particular exclusivity on dictating the paramaters of their offspring’s partner choice. It seems to me that it goes on within a lot of religions to varying degrees … arranged marriages, preventing marriages outside the religion, or requiring conversion before marriage is allowed etc. Varying degrees of limitation, but overall the same notion of control over partner choice. But hey, if you said that the whole lot of them (religions I mean, not people) have no place here I really wouldn’t be overly bothered by the thought… agencies of corporatised mind-control that they are….but of course going so far as banning religions would raise concerns of its own as far as freedoms go. Best let people come to the conclusion for themselves that all religions are just silly. :)
As long as the law does protect people from harm if they decide to opt out….but I’m afraid it’s not realistic to expect the law to protect them from their family choosing not to talk to them etc.
If a woman is convinced she has no choice, then there is a lack of education of our legal system and basic human rights.
Show me someone who thinks they have no choice and I'll show you someone who has no understanding of the law. Under our laws they are free to choose, so no-one is condoning forced marriage.
Gingerosity, in light of your above statements, it appears that you are very confident that our laws here will protect those who are being forced to marry due to tradition, and who wish to say ‘no’. The following is a 10 year old story now, but still pretty recent history. It’s a story of a 15 year old Australian girl promised in marriage to a 50 year old Australian man. Her parents arranged it at her birth in exchange for money. Prior to the marriage the man decides he doesn’t wish to wait any longer, the girl tries to resist him, he punches her and is otherwise violent, fires a gun into the air, and has sex with her against her wishes. An Australian court finds that it was his cultural right. The judge said that the 15 year old girl "knew what was expected of her" and "didn't need protection". The decision was appealed, but ….the “appeal judge upheld (the man’s) defense, explaining that while (the man) knew he had done something wrong in the eyes of Western law, his conduct was "... custom" and part of his culture.”
This is despite the fact that statutory rape is expected to be the verdict even in cases of consensual sex with a minor, but in this case, custom and tradition were given greater weight by those entrusted with enforcing our laws. Two judges condoned what happened even though force was clearly involved. Human rights seem to have been overlooked entirely.
In this case the custom being referred to is not that of Islam, but of indigenous Australians. This court ruling was made (twice) despite ongoing heated debate between experts about what is fact and what is distortion when it comes to Aboriginal traditions. Regardless of that debate…in my view this is an example of a 15 year old Australian girl being very much denied the protections of our legal system. Understandably it may not have inspired much confidence in others facing the same situation, or have left them feeling quite so convinced that they do indeed have a choice.
http://womensenews.org/story/the-world/021129/judge-rules-rape-aboriginal-girl-traditional
And since the early 2000’s there have been frequent examples of excessively lenient sentencing for rapists of women and girls, if they use the defence of saying it was “tradition” and the girl was “promised to them”. (Like the middle aged man who anally raped a 14 year old girl who he said was promised to him...the NT Chief Justice only sentenced him to be locked up for the rest of the day.) If one set of claimed traditions can be used successfully as a defence in court, why not others? Maybe our laws wouldn’t protect people stuck in these situations as much as we like to think. | |
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| Forced arranged marriages (as seen on 4corners)
Posted: 4/4/2012 6:06:42 PM | | Hey, first time on here, but a subject close to my heart.... my (now) ex girlfriend is from an italian background and turned down the man her parents wanted her to marry twice before finally marrying him to keep the family peace. it runined her life being in a forced marriage like that and unfortunately turned her into the woman she is today. her method of getting back at her husband was to have extra marrital affairs because she never believed in the marriage in the first place... for over 30 years! i won't go into the details other than to say i can understand why she did it. i don't condone it, but i understand. she should have just got a divorce but you can't undo what has been done can you. if our country still allows this sort of thing to happen our laws are in need of changing badly. i did not see the episode of four corners that you talk about unfortunately but as soon as i read this forum title i had to say something... if any one has any questions about my story by all means get back to me.... cheers all... | |
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| Forced arranged marriages (as seen on 4corners)
Posted: 4/5/2012 12:21:05 AM | In the original post it was stated Islam but no mention of Indian, Italian or Grekk arranged marriages and I didn't watch the episode either.
Arranged marriages were common in european countries as well especially between royalty for the main reason of forming political alliances.
Apart from the few arranged marriages that have worked out properly there are those arranged marriages that haven't worked out and have resulted in dire actions against the bride.
Given that Australia is a country that believes in freedom of choice then immigrants should be instructed that some cultural and religeous practices go against the individuals right of freedom and these rights should not be assumed to be implied. | |
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