A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to attend a workshop run by Jasvinder Sanghera, CBE – a truly inspiring woman. She has dedicated her life to educating about forced marriage and honor based violence after she ran away from home, age 16, to save herself from a forced marriage.
Jasvinder is in her early 50s. Her father had moved to the UK from Punjab in the 1950s. She is the youngest of a large family – six girls and a boy. Her sisters were taken aged 15 and forced to marry a man they had never met. At 14, Jasvinders mother showed her a photo of her future husband and Jasvinder said NO. She wanted a different life – she wanted to go to school and did not want to get married.
Her mother held her prisoner in the house until she agreed to the marriage but she ran away. She was a young girl whose only support network was her family – but she choose the difficult decision to run away from the only people she ever knew. She did phone her mother several times but her mother said that she had shamed her and called her a prostitute. She told her mother that she just wanted to live her life and go to university. Her mother told her ‘in our eyes you are dead, you shamed us’. In such families – they will often never speak or see their daughter again as they are now dishonored.
In 1989, Robina, one of Jasvinder’s sisters, committed suicide by setting fire to herself.
In 1993 Jasvinder set up Karma Nirvana which is a national award winning charity that supports both men and women affected by honour based abuse and forced marriages. We must not forget about the men – as they are also being forced into marriage. She runs roadshows that she is taking nationally across the UK. These are community empowerment roadshows which will identify the national picture and figure out what needs to change.
She has been honored by numerous awards, including Woman of the Year in 2007 and Cosmopolitan Ultimate Woman of the Year in 2010. In 2011 she was listed in the Guardians 100 Most Inspirational Women in the World and in 2013 she was awarded Commander of the British Empire.
Her work was pivotal in making forced marriage a criminal offence in the UK in 2014. It is amazing it was never a criminal offence before this time. For many years, if a girl went missing from school, it would be put down to religion and culture.
Karma Nirvana have a risk assessment tool to determine if the family are a risk. The abusers in these cases are the family. It is not 1 on 1 abuse but abuse by multiple members of the family and community. The perpetrators are very often mothers, sisters and aunties. The family feel that if the child does not come back, then the family will be shamed and dishonored. Jasvinder says that honor is something carried and contained in women and guarded by men. In many cultures, it is important for women not to be dishonorable. They must cover their heads and not speak or even look at men as this can cause dishonor.
Jasvinder has written her story. She called her book ‘Shame’. Jasvinder says we need an army of women to help other women.
Read More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasvinder_Sanghera
Image – Joyce Harper meeting Jasvinder Sanghera
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