by Cathy Glass
‘“Farhad,” she said, without turning. “He’s your cousin’s uncle.” The name didn’t mean anything to me. I had lots of cousins in Bangladesh and England. “Hasan’s uncle,” she clarified quietly.
‘I looked at her in amazement and disgust. “You’re forcing me to marry the uncle of the man who raped me?” I said.
‘She spun round and slapped my face hard. “Don’t ever say that again. You don’t mention what happened. Show respect. This marriage will heal the shame you brought upon us all.”
‘By then I fully believed it had been my fault, and I now saw my marriage as punishment.
‘“But why him?” I asked, defeated. “You could have married me to Hasan.”
‘“Farhad needs a wife,” she said. “He wants to come to England.”
‘I didn’t understand. “But how can marrying me achieve that?” I asked.
‘“When you’re sixteen you will be able to send for him and marry him in England, then he will be able to stay and his family will be pleased.”
‘I had no idea if what she’d said was true and the English law allowed this, but I found some comfort in the timescale. “So if I marry this man he will stay here and you and I will return home?” I asked.
‘“Yes,” she said. “As long as you do as you’re told. If you make a fuss you’ll stay here with him.” I had no doubt she meant it.
‘That morning my cousins and young aunts got me ready. They brushed my hair and plaited it with beads and then helped me into a gold-coloured sari. It was a beautiful dress and I would have admired it on someone else. “Don’t you like your dress?” one of my aunts asked, seeing my sad face. “We had it made specially on your mother’s instructions.” So my mother had been plotting my marriage for some time, I thought.
‘They finished getting me ready, hung a garland of flowers around my neck and then the guests started arriving, some of them ringing bells. They led me outside where the man I was to marry was waiting. He looked so old. I found out later he was forty-nine – almost four times my age. We went to an area that had been decorated with flowers and shaded with cloths, and the ceremony began.
‘I did what was expected of me, said the words, and I was married. Then we ate specially prepared foods. They ate; I felt sick. The wedding celebration continued into the night. Hasan was among the guests but he didn’t approach me. When it was time for me to leave, one of my aunts took the garland from my neck and hung it around Farhad’s neck, then everyone clapped as we walked away. He took me to the hut my mother and I had been sharing, and for one moment I thought he was going to say goodnight and leave me alone. But he came into the hut and in the semi-darkness began stroking my face. He grinned. His teeth were missing and his breath smelled. In Bengali he told me to take off my clothes.
‘“Mother sleeps here,” I replied in Bengali.
‘“Not now you are married to me,” he said.
‘I looked around for my mother’s belongings but they had all been taken away. I started to cry. “I’m only thirteen,” I said. “Please leave me alone.”
‘“You are my wife,” he said, taking hold of my arms.
‘“Please wait until you come to England,” I said.
‘He smirked. “I’m not going to wait three years,” he said.
‘“Please don’t,” I begged, and dropped to my knees. “Please wait. Don’t hurt me like Hasan did.”
‘His grip tightened on my arms. He pulled me roughly to my feet and then onto the bed. I knew there was no point in crying out. As far as everyone else was concerned he was my husband and he had a right to me. He tore off my clothes and when I was naked he forced himself into me as his nephew had done. He raped me twice that night, then every night until we left. We were there for another week and I barely left the hut. My aunts brought me food but otherwise left me alone. Now I was a married woman I was none of their business. I counted the days and hours until we were due to go home. It was the only thing that kept me going. When that day finally arrived, in the morning Farhad walked out of the hut and disappeared, and my mother came in. She had her suitcase with her and told me to pack. That was all she said. “Pack your clothes. We will be leaving soon.”
‘The uncle who’d collected us from the airport took us back. Some of the villagers waved us off, although Farhad wasn’t among them. Neither my mother nor my uncle spoke to me in the car, and when we got to the airport Mum gave me both our passports and tickets and expected me to take control again. I took them and ran off, leaving her to make her own way with the suitcase. I didn’t want to be anywhere near her. I felt betrayed, and I hoped she’d miss the flight. But when I got to the check-in desk the lady said I had to wait for my mother, as I was under age and we were travelling together.
‘When my mother arrived there wasn’t much time. I could see she was angry but she couldn’t make a scene in front of so many people. I led the way to the departure lounge and she had to walk very quickly to keep up. We didn’t speak in the airport or on the plane going home. My father collected us when we arrived back in England and couldn’t even look at me. All the way home he moaned to my mother about Aunt Riya being bossy and ordering him around. I was pleased she’d given him some grief. When we got home my little brothers and sisters fell into my arms. They were so happy to see me and I was them. We smothered each other in hugs and kisses and I cried with joy. I was so happy to be with them again.
‘Aunt Riya was already packed – she’d had enough of my father too. I knew that the bangle she’d given to me had always been intended for my wedding, not my birthday, but I didn’t say anything. I don’t think she knew any better. Her marriage had been arranged, as had my parents’.’
‘But an arranged marriage is surely different from a forced marriage?’ I said.
‘It can come to the same thing in the end,’ Zeena said.
We were silent for some moments. ‘And you’ve told no one else about this?’ I asked.
‘No, not until now. When I returned to school I was quiet, but everyone assumed it was because I’d been to a funeral. Then Farhad started phoning me and I found out that my parents had paid him a dowry. They had paid him to marry me! They might just as well have paid Hasan to rape me. That’s what it feels like.’
I shuddered and looked down at Zeena’s pale and lifeless hand in mine. ‘You’ve suffered so much in your short life,’ I said. ‘I can’t begin to feel your pain. But I do know we must get you help, so we need to tell Tara and Norma.’
Zeena nodded.
I had no idea what the law was in England relating to what had happened to Zeena, but Tara and Norma would know. ‘I’m sure something can be done,’ I added.
‘I’ll tell them,’ Zeena said quietly.
I hoped she meant it this time.
I sat beside Zeena in her bedroom holding her hand for some time. There was little I could say beyond reassuring her I would do all I could to help and support her. Usually I’m quite good at soothing a child’s pain, but what Zeena had been through was so huge and outside my experience that I felt almost as overwhelmed as she did. It was Friday evening and the social services offices would be closed. If I telephoned them now I would have to speak to the duty social worker, who wouldn’t be familiar with Zeena’s case. As Zeena wasn’t in any immediate danger I decided to wait until Monday to phone, when I would be able to talk to Tara. I explained this to Zeena.
‘Yes, I’d rather you waited for Tara,’ she said.
Presently the front door opened and closed and Lucy called up, ‘Hi! Anyone home?’
‘I’m in Zeena’s room,’ I returned. It was after six o’clock. I’d been with Zeena listening to her story for over two hours.
Lucy came upstairs and knocked on Zeena’s bedroom door. ‘Can I come in?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ Zeena returned. I sensed she welcomed the normality and diversion that Lucy offered.
‘Are you OK?’ Lucy asked Zeena as she came in.
Zeena nodded.
&nbs
p; ‘I’m going out later,’ Lucy said to me. ‘Shall I make us some dinner?’
‘You can, although I was thinking we might have a takeaway delivered, as I haven’t got anything ready. Will you be all right if I go downstairs and order it?’ I now asked Zeena.
‘Yes,’ she said.
I went out, leaving Lucy with Zeena. Half an hour later Lucy came downstairs to see how long the takeaway would be. Zeena had told her some of her story, and Lucy was shocked.
‘Do you believe her, Mum?’ Lucy asked, finding it as unimaginable as I had.
‘Yes, sadly, I do,’ I said. ‘Do you?’
‘I think so. It seems incredible, but she wouldn’t lie over something like this. And that bloke – her husband – does keep phoning her.’
I nodded thoughtfully.
The takeaway arrived at the same time as Adrian, and the four of us ate together. Paula texted to say she’d been swimming and was going back to her friend’s house for something to eat. Zeena was quiet during dinner, which was hardly surprising. When we’d finished she said she was going to her room. I checked on her after about a quarter of an hour. The phone used by her husband was on the bed beside her.
‘You don’t have to speak to him,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you switch off the phone or give it to me. You have your other phone for your friends.’
‘If I don’t speak to him he’ll tell my parents and I’ll be in more trouble,’ she said. ‘He may even try to come here sooner, so it’s better if I speak to him and keep him happy.’ Which I accepted for the time being – until we’d spoken to Tara and Norma and had heard their advice.
I went further into her room. There was something else troubling me. ‘Zeena, love, I’ve been thinking,’ I said gently. ‘I know this is difficult, but he really needs to be told about the diseases he’s carrying so he can be treated.’
Zeena looked at me, puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
‘The sexually transmitted diseases you caught from your husband,’ I clarified. ‘He should be notified so he can be treated.’
She hesitated, as though she was still having difficulty making the connection, and then said, ‘Yes. I’ll tell him.’ I was almost certain she wouldn’t.
Chapter Nineteen
Atrocity
I believed Zeena when she told me she’d been raped as a child. The detail with which she’d described the event, her pitiful tears and misplaced guilt suggested she was telling the truth. But I was struggling with the second part of her story. Was it possible for a thirteen-year-old British girl to be tricked into going abroad and then forced to marry a stranger? It seemed incredible to me. Perhaps Zeena had invented the story, possibly to protect her boyfriend from being identified? I’d no idea, but if she was telling the truth then maybe there were other cases similar to Zeena’s. Nowadays most incidents, atrocities and revelations can be found documented on the internet, so that is where I looked.
That evening, with Zeena and Adrian in their rooms and Paula and Lucy out, I took a mug of coffee into the front room and switched on the computer. With little idea of where to start, I typed underage forced marriage into a search engine. To my horror and amazement pages and pages of websites came up – over 179,000! The first website carried the headline: 60 million underage girls have been forced to marry worldwide. I thought I must have misread it, but as I scrolled down I learned that millions of girls across the world, from different religions and cultures, had been forced to marry while still children, often to much older men. As in Zeena’s case, the marriages had been arranged by the children’s parents and the ceremony carried out by a holy person. In some countries children as young as eight and nine were being forced to marry, sometimes resulting in the girl suffering horrific internal injuries from being repeatedly raped by her husband. One case was that of an eight-year-old girl who’d died on her wedding night from internal haemorrhaging after being raped by her husband. He was forty years old. My stomach churned.
I closed this website and opened the next, where I learned that girls as young as eleven and twelve were dying in childbirth in villages and some hospitals abroad. I could barely look at the photographs of the little girls in their wedding dresses, standing beside the adult males five or six times their ages who were to be their husbands. Reasons for child marriage included ensuring the girl was a virgin when she married, dowry payments, the value of a child bride and poverty – some families had to marry off their girl children in order to feed the rest of the family.
I read web page after web page on forced child marriages, and some included shocking statistics. In Yemen, for example, a quarter of the female population was married before the age of fifteen, with a similar figure for Pakistan. Niger, Chad, Mali, India, Guinea and Bangladesh ranked among the highest for forced child marriages, with a shocking 20 per cent of girls in Bangladesh married before their fifteenth birthday. Many were under twelve. Organizations around the world were campaigning to stop the practice of child marriage, and countries were gradually passing laws to make it illegal, but change was slow, especially in remote rural areas.
Yet while I’d learned a lot, and what I’d read was horrific, I hadn’t found information on cases specifically like Zeena’s; a British girl forced into marriage abroad. I now typed underage forced marriage in Britain into the search engine and within minutes I had my answer. Zeena wasn’t the only one. Cases like hers had happened before and were happening now. The websites said that while it wasn’t possible to quantify the exact numbers – because some girls simply disappeared or their marriage was kept secret – every year hundreds if not thousands of British teenage girls were forced into marriages abroad. Some, like Zeena, had been tricked into going – the promise of a holiday being a favourite, or to learn about their culture was another. Some of the girls had been emotionally blackmailed, some drugged to get them on the plane, while others had been beaten into submission or threatened with harm if they refused to marry. I read that hundreds of British teenage girls simply disappear from England each year and never return.
The cases that were well documented were those like Zeena’s; girls who had returned or escaped, some with the help of the British consulate abroad. Many of the girls told of being locked up until their wedding day or threatened with violence if they disobeyed. ‘Honour-based violence’, as it is known, seemed to go hand in hand with forced marriage, although I couldn’t begin to see where the honour lay in what these girls had been subjected to. I read that in Britain most of the girls who went missing did so in July, just before the schools broke up for the long summer holidays when their disappearance wouldn’t be noticed for at least six weeks. How could this be allowed to happen in Britain?
I read on and learned that there was help and support available for these girls. I found websites listing telephone helplines, charities and organizations that girls could contact if they feared they were about to be subjected to a forced marriage, or if they’d already been the victim of one. Also the British Government, now aware of the problem, had set up a website that gave information for professionals (teachers, social workers, etc.), including advice on how to spot the signs of a forced marriage. All the websites emphasized that if a girl was worried for her safety she should call the police on 999.
I was still at the computer when Paula arrived home, having been given a lift by her friend’s mother. She kissed me goodnight and went to bed. Then half an hour later Lucy arrived home, having been dropped off by her boyfriend. She, too, kissed me goodnight and went up to bed. Just before midnight I switched off the computer, shocked and saddened by what I’d read, but wholly convinced Zeena was telling the truth.
That night I couldn’t sleep. The stories of the child brides, their photographs and Zeena’s suffering plagued my waking hours. When Zeena awoke in the morning and came downstairs I gave her a reassuring hug. ‘I’m so pleased you’re staying with us,’ I said.
She smiled. ‘So am I,’ she said.
I knew I shouldn’t quest
ion her further about what she’d told me. I needed to leave that to Tara and Norma, who would know which questions to ask and how best to proceed. I thought I could help Zeena if I made the weekend as normal as possible, in what was an otherwise very abnormal situation: fostering a fourteen-year-old who was married was a first for me, as it would be for most carers.
Zeena seemed to be coping quite well. We were mainly at home on Saturday; Zeena did her homework and then chatted with Paula and Lucy. Then on Sunday all five of us went to see my parents. I tried to visit them most weekends, even if it was just for a short visit. As usual they made a fuss of us, and their presence offered a reassuring stability compared to the uncertainty of the tragedy we were now having to deal with. I didn’t tell them what had happened to Zeena – it was confidential – and she didn’t tell them either, but she seemed relaxed and chatted to them about their garden, of which they were justly proud. Although neither Zeena nor I mentioned her situation again over the weekend, it was never far from my mind, as I’m sure it wasn’t from hers. I kept looking at her with great sadness as I struggled to equate the young-looking fourteen-year-old girl I saw with the marriageable woman her parents must have seen a year before. They’d been so eager to obliterate the past and build bridges between the families that they’d sacrificed their daughter to marriage and rape. It was an atrocity, and I couldn’t see it any other way.
On Monday I took Zeena to school in the car and, having watched her go in, I returned straight home. With my fostering folder open on my lap I sat on the sofa in the living room, picked up the phone and keyed in the number for Tara’s office. It was 9.15 a.m. and she answered straight away.
‘It’s Cathy, Zeena’s carer,’ I said. ‘Are you free? I need to talk to you. Zeena’s disclosed something horrendous.’
