A recent report attacking the proposed criminalisation of forced marriage (highlighted in today’s Times) uses some disturbing arguments. It was written by Roger Ballard and Fauzia Shariff.
The outlawing of forced marriage will fail because brides who get their relatives sent to jail will be rejected by their South Asian families, two leading anthropologists have warned the Home Office.
This does not seem like a good basis for attacking the new law. Why should people’s refusal to sympathise with young people forced into marriage, their wrongheaded decision to condemn the victims rather than the perpetrators, stop one from punishing criminals?
The anthropological study shows that South Asian culture has taken such deep roots in Britain that even cultural practices such as forced marriage, which dismay Western liberals, cannot be effectively forbidden.
The full report doesn’t seem available, but the summary offered in the Times suggests that its argument is illogical. It implies that nothing can be done about this problem – while objecting to a legal measure supported by those determined to combat the practice.
This was particularly objectionable:
The anthropologists condemn supporters of the new law as “ill-informed pedlars of ‘improvement’ . . . seeking to rescue damsels in distress”. They argue that the consequences of prosecutions are likely to be disastrous for the unwilling brides.
There would be “a lengthy public trial exploring the internal dynamics of the entire extended family, as well as the prospective imprisonment of one or more of its members — a shattering process which would be most unlikely to bring any immediate benefits to the deeply embarrassed young women on whose behalf the whole exercise was nominally being conducted”.
It’s clear that such prosecutions would be traumatic – but presumably less traumatic than being trapped in a forced marriage. Many trials involve painful revelations and may cause anxiety and distress, even danger, to victims and witnesses. But these aren’t reasons to give up on justice. Rape victims, similarly, may derive no ‘immediate benefits’ from going to court. Phrases such as ‘damsels in distress’ and ‘deeply embarrassed young women’ are really tendentious. I assume the first is more of a sneer at those seeking to help the victims, than at the girls themselves, but to me it implies that the authors are willing to sacrifice the wellbeing of young British women in order to protect some rather nebulous ‘community’. Similarly it is offensive to describe the victims as ‘deeply embarrassed’ as though the (undeniable) trauma of testifying against their families should be seen as more noteworthy than being kidnapped and raped, or as a reason to prevent prosecution.
The report, judging from the quotations, promotes multiculturalism in its most morally relativist form:
The new law will demonise other cultures. It would be “widely perceived as part of a unilateral effort to undermine the integrity of new minorities’ cultural traditions, in favour of the adoption of individualistically orientated (and hence ‘superior’) Euro-American premises and practices”.
The arguments used against the criminalisation of forced marriage are similar to those used against the prosecution of FGM. In both cases concerns are expressed that the victims may not benefit from the process. But this misses (part of) the point; clamping down on both practices will act as a deterrent and help save future victims.
And here’s a useful point made in a leading article on the issue in today’s Times:
In France, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Austria and other European countries, forced marriage is a crime. The unambiguous signal this sends has been welcomed by campaigners. Fears that criminalisation would send the practice underground have proved exaggerated.
