Pakistanis abroad trick daughters into marriage

When Neelum Aziz visited Kashmir for the first time last year, the young British girl couldn't wait to explore her family's home village. But her parents had something else in mind.

Two weeks after arriving in Kotli - in the Pakistan-administered part of the disputed territory - Ms. Aziz was told she had to marry her cousin.

"[My father and uncle] took away my [British] passport, money, and other belongings and locked me up," she says. "I screamed and shouted and kept on crying. My tears dried up, but my family elders did not listen to me and married me to a cousin of mine without my consent," she says.

Aziz's story is only the most recent example of hundreds of young girls who become victims of their families' desire to preserve an age-old tradition. According to human rights activists, 250 girls like Aziz - daughters of British citizens from Pakistan - were forced into marriages with relatives in 2002 alone.

For many Pakistanis living abroad, sending their child to marry in the home country is a sure way to preserve culture and lineage. But for many of the girls themselves, who chafe at harsh parental control after relishing freedom in their adopted country, this clash of cultures is a breach of fundamental human rights. It's a cultural clash that diplomats and law- enforcement officials find difficult to resolve, because it takes place in two separate countries and legal systems.

"[These Pakistanis] opt to live in the West but want to keep alive the traditions of the East which victimize women," says Zia Awan, the head of Madadgaar, a nongovernmental organization that provides legal aid and is a crisis center for women in Karachi, Pakistan. "Bringing the girls back to Pakistan makes coercion simpler and easier, as the young girls being brought up in the West are alienated from their known environment," he says.

Most of the reported cases are of British-born Pakistanis; about a million Pakistanis live in England. But activists say girls of Pakistani descent from Norway, the Netherlands, and Ireland have also been brought to Pakistan by their parents and forcibly married to relatives.

The practice is not new, but seemingly on the rise, according to Mr. Awan. "We are witnessing an extremist return to Islam, especially among Pakistanis living abroad. They perceive the changing policies of the West to combat terrorism as a direct hostility toward Muslims living in the West, and we believe that the rise in forced marriages is linked to the changing attitudes."

In Pakistan, forced marriages usually go uncontested. "Here girls are treated as animals. They are bought, sold and even bartered to settle the tribal feuds," says a well known, independent human rights activist in Karachi, Attiya Dawood. "The girl is a symbol of honor in our society and is targeted at every level." Her consent in a marriage has "no importance," she adds.

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