slaying

Criminalising Forced Marriage Is a Start, Not an End

Buried in a law which will criminalise “nuisance and annoyance” is a measure to tackle something far less trivial: the practice of early and forced marriage. Indeed the Antisocial Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill, which entered the statute book last week and will most prominently replace the ‘ASBO’ with the ‘IPNA’, offers little clue in .. read more

Record numbers contact helpline for forced marriage and honour-based abuse

Charity warns calls are going unanswered as demand for advice overwhelms the service The UK’s only forced marriage and honour-based abuse helpline has received almost double the number of monthly calls it had last year. Capacity is now so stretched that its founder has warned that it may have to cut the line to only .. read more

Faiths fight forced marriage

This week’s inauguration of the Global Freedom Network — a large-scale interfaith initiative to end slavery — publicly recognises the importance of interfaith collaboration as a means of understanding and addressing social issues. The united efforts of Catholic, Anglican and Muslim leaders reflect a realisation that no single religious tradition can solve an issue as .. read more

Scores of Girls marry before 18

Statistics by the Department of Social Welfare show that nine out of every 10 girls marry before they reach age 18 and one out of every five girls marry by the age of 18 in Ghana. Also, about 14 million girls under age 18 marry every year and out of this 1,166,666 marry each month .. read more

Poster exhibition: Students show dark side of early marriage

ISLAMABAD: In the absence of proper legislation against forced marriages, the menace is a pervasive reality. The practice of marrying off underage young girls and boys is particularly prevalent to settle disputes among other ulterior motives in some rural parts of the country. Depicting the plight of individuals who are at the helm of this outdated .. read more

Mozambique: New law keeps old leniency for rapists who wed victims

NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation)—Women’s rights activists in Mozambique are opposing proposed legislation that includes an old law essentially giving rapists impunity if they marry their victims, even if it results in forced early marriage. Activists marched Thursday in the capital city of Maputo against a new penal code currently before parliament that would include .. read more

PALESTINIAN WOMEN’S ORGANIZATIONS CHALLENGE “HONOR KILLINGS”

After a surge in killings of women in the Palestinian territories, women’s organizations are calling for an end to legal loopholes which allow men to exercise violence against female relatives with impunity. FSRN’s Lena Odgaard reports from Gaza. “It was the most difficult day in my life,” is how the middle-aged ‘Im Mohammed’ describes the .. read more

Movie review: Honor Diaries — ‘Their lives are not their own’

Documentary looks at the abuse of women in male-dominated societies Honor Diaries One girl was married off when she was eight, then raped by her “husband.” A woman was killed with acid by her own parents because she looked at a boy. “It was her destiny to die this way,” her mother said. A husband .. read more

‘Honour’ killing: Father murders daughter, son-in-law

In a suspected case of honour killing, a father allegedly battered his daughter and her husband to death in Durgapur village in Unnao, police said on Tuesday. The incident happened on Monday night in Chaurasi area when Vinod (25) and his wife Rita (22) were attacked by girl’s father Parag and his associates with sticks, .. read more

SC orders arrests in ‘honour’ killing case

KARACHI: The Supreme Court directed the police on Friday to arrest all those involved in the “honour” killing of two girls in Shikarpur. A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani, was seized with the suo motu proceedings against a jirga that was held for settling a dispute over honour killings. According to media reports, PML-F .. read more