Marriage…forced on earth and not made in heaven

It seems like a simple enough concept. Force implies pressure and coercion, something not wanted. Thus, it seems to be the forcing of marriage between people, where at least one participant is unwilling. Yet this simplistic narrative glosses over the true facts and harsh realities about forced marriage.

Both adult women, and less commonly, men can be forced into marriage. Yet, across the world 12 million girls (aged 18 and under) are also forced and sold into marriage every year. For these girls, who are of school age, losing their education can be both the cause and result of forced marriage. Families will sell their daughters into marriage either as they lack the funds to educate them or do not see a need for education due to the girl’s sole future role as a wife. If they are offered money for their daughters’ hand then this can be a benefit.

Within this viewpoint a woman, a girl, a daughter is merely a commodity, due to religious or cultural reasons.

The rest of a girl’s life is set out with a future of suffering unimaginable pain due to their inability to free themselves from the legally binding constraints of marriage, and potential domestic and sexual abuse. There is often a supportive community to help the husband control his wife through emotional, physical and financial control, which allows this exploitative act and the disempowerment of women to continue. To go against the marriage is a controversial future for anyone, it is shameful. Families, the people closest to a person, are at least complicit, if not perpetrators in these scenarios. It has led to extremes of honour killings in some cases, disownment in others.

Forced marriage is often seen as a problem irrelevant to the developed world, attributed solely to Africa and the Middle East. However, this is not the full story. Forced marriage happens everywhere, even right where many least expect it. It can occur in diaspora communities where girls can either be married within local communities or sent to their home countries to be married to a complete stranger or distant relative.

Despite this being seen as cultural, religious or traditional, and thus often treated hesitantly by police, there is no excuse for inaction. Let us remember that forced marriage is most likely underreported. Fear and shame are strong deterrents.

Imagine coming home from school, where you have generated plans for university or graduation being told that you will be married, and soon. There is no discussion, this is a fact. The most important thing before that conversation would have been upcoming exams or aspirations for the future. And now there are none. Everyone around you, friends and schoolmates would be free to choose a future. But not you. Imagine trying to explain to friends this situation; would you even tell them? Would they brush it off as a cultural matter? Would they be outraged for you? Could they even do anything?

Yet this is happening around us.

But this should not be total case for despair. By reading this article you are staying informed and use that, inform more people. Look up local services. Open your eyes to those around you, be they classmates, colleagues or students and don’t write off or dismiss certain activities as merely cultural oddities. Just because something is cultural or traditional it doesn’t mean it can’t be questioned.

There is hope. NGOs are helping women across the world. Our partners in Nepal, IDEA Nepal and Save Girls Self Defense, do amazing work enhancing the leadership of young people to fight against injustice and inequality. High profile forced marriages are generating increasing public awareness, such as Princess Haya, the estranged wife of the ruler of Dubai who asked an English court for a forced marriage protection order. It is up to us to make sure that these can’t be stories that only last a week. Helping one individual is great but a process for preventing the issue and discouraging forced marriage needs to occur.

That is where We Encourage comes in. We are on a mission to enable education, empower women and stop forced marriages by utilizing technologies such as AI and blockchain to empower women, and to create a global community and an incentivizing system for families to educate their daughters instead of them being forced into marriage. For more information on specific details of this see out blog post “Every Girl has right to education”, or join us on Facebook and LinkedIn.