Forced Marriages in the US

Hat tip Steve and Miggie


Last December, I attended the annual conference of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, which was held at the All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena. One of the speakers who caught my attention was a young Muslim lady from New York of Pakistani origin. Her name was Darakshan Raja, who is a social worker in New York dealing with abused women and children. She spoke passionately and emotionally about the problem of domestic abuse with the US Muslim community, which she characterized as the biggest problem within that community. Raja is a founder of the Falling Walls Initiative designed primarily to raise awareness within the Muslim community of the problem of domestic abuse.

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2012/12/darakshan-rajas-speech-at-mpac.html

Raja, along with Vidya Sri, has published the results of a study they did on forced marriages within the US. It can be accessed below. It is entitled, "Voices From the Front Line".

The authors maintain that the problem of forced marriages is largely one of culture rather than any particular religion. While not stated explicitly, it must be inferred from the report that the problem is mostly within certain immigrant communities, predominantly the South Asian communities, such as Indian, Pakistani, etc. (As they mentioned, the notorious Warren Jeffs case was an example of forced marriage that did not involve an immigrant community.)

It is worth a read. As always, comments are welcome from all. I think we can all agree that forced marriage has no place in this society.

http://www.manavi.org/documents/FMReport.pdf