fighting forced marriage, at home and abroad

Two interesting pieces that popped up in newspapers over the weekend--the story of the Islamabad British Embassy's "diplomatic snatch squad," which quietly rescues young British-Pakistani women who have been tricked or forced into marriages in Pakistan:

On average, diplomatic jeeps leave the high-walled compound for the villages of Punjab and Kashmir twice a week. Their mission: to pluck the reluctant brides from the clutches of their cousins, whisk them to safety and put them on a plane back to the UK. Last year the team saved 105 young people, according to Helen Feather, head of the consular section and leader of the team. Most are between 18 and 24, although the youngest was 14.

With the assistance of the Pakistani authorities and Pakistani women's rights groups like Sach, the embassy team organizes safe housing and care for the women and girls, provides them with emergency passports, and helps them return to the UK.

The second piece is about the fight that Turkish-German and Turkish-Austrian women's groups are waging against forced marriage among Turkish immigrant communities in Europe. Arranged marriage (forced or otherwise) is uncommon in Turkey today, but it still exists in rural, poor areas--the kinds of communities where many of the immigrants in Europe come from. The dynamics of migration, segregation, and conservatism in migrant communities have created a pattern similar to the British-Pakistani one, where young women are often tricked or forced to return to the "home" country for marriage, brought to the host country for marriage, or pressured by family to marry to a recent immigrant. Orient Express and Papatya, the two feminist groups mentioned in the article, help young women escape forced marriages and abuse, and work to draw attention to the problems of domestic abuse and "honor" killing in these communities.