forced marriages

Man fleeing forced marriage jumps off from airport lounge

CHENNAI: Under pressure to marry a woman against his wishes, a 27-year-old man tried to escape his family, but missed his flight to Singapore. Dejected, he tried to kill himself by jumping off a deck of the airport lounge, and ended up with a fractured leg. Police said Murugan, a native of Vellore, reached the .. read more

Forced Marriage Awareness: The secret horror of summer holidays for hundreds of girls

For some British girls, the next few weeks could spell the end of their freedom Shafilea Ahmed was a bright, promising teenage girl. She had dreams of being a lawyer – dreams she would have realised by now had her tragic life not been cut short. Shafilea, who lived in Warrington, was caught between two .. read more

Youth kills two sisters for ‘honour’

BAREILLY: In a suspected case of honour killing, a youth killed his two sisters on Saturday morning in Gher Saifuddin locality of Rampur. Police said that the elder sister, Rounak (19), was having an affair with a local youth. However, the girl’s brother, Raja Mashkoor (30), had fixed her marriage with another man without her .. read more

Chilling documentary about Irving sisters’ ‘honor killing’ premieres at Lakewood Theater

It’s been six-and-a-half years since Amina and Sarah Said were gunned down in their father’s taxi cab outside an Irving hotel. Yaser Said, the girls’ father and prime suspect in their murders, has been on the run ever since. The net may finally be tightening around him, though. In addition to increased FBI attention, Yaser is the subject of a .. read more

How the Women of Pakistan Cope With War, Honor Killings and Prejudice

How do women cope in Pakistan? This is a question I am very frequently asked by people in the West who are flooded by news of all the incessant outrageous happenings in my country. One cannot deny that in times of crisis that have global bearings—as in the Afghan war of the 1980s and the .. read more

Older sister in Pakistani honor-killing trial changes story on family’s shame after failed arranged marriage

Nasreen Ajmal, 29, testified Monday in Brooklyn Federal Court that the breakup of younger sister Amani Ajmal’s arranged marriage ‘didn’t hurt’ the family’s reputation. Their father, Mohammad Ajmal Choudhry, is accused of orchestrating honor killings in Pakistan as retribution. A daughter of the Brooklyn cabbie charged with ordering honor killings in Pakistan flip-flopped Monday about .. read more

‘Honor killing’ cabby faces life in prison

The fate of a Brooklyn cabby charged with being so enraged by his daughter ditching an arranged marriage that he ordered the her new beau’s relatives to be killed is now in the hands of a jury. Mohammad Choudhry faces life in prison for plotting to kill the father and sister of Shujat Abbas in Pakistan .. read more

CBI probing ‘honour killing’ theory in Badaun case

NEW DELHI: The CBI is probing the “honour killing” theory in the gang rape and murder of two teenaged girls in Uttar Pradesh’s Badaun. Highly placed sources told TOI that there were several reasons to verify the honour killing theory – repeated contradictions in the statements given by family members including parents, mismatched versions of .. read more

Could UK ban on forced marriage backfire?

British law criminalising forced marriage could discourage those most at risk from coming forward, say some activists. Parents in the UK who force their children into marriage could be jailed for up to seven years under new legislation outlawing the practice, but campaigners are divided over whether the threat of criminal trial and tough punishments .. read more

Burkina Faso : forced marriage, a topic for the theatre

Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation. In sub-Saharan Africa, nearly one third of all young girls are married before the age of eighteen. In Burkina Faso and Mali, forced marriage is still a very common practice. As a part of its project to support .. read more