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Wednesday 23 February 2011

What's the factor not being reported by the BBC? You can probably guess by now!

The BBC report that ''Action needed' on forced marriage says abused teenager'

The report is a long one by Tulip Mazumdar, Newsbeat presenter in Pakistan, and mostly concerns one 15-year-old victim who
'says she was tricked into going to Pakistan by her dad, but she managed to escape days before her wedding to a man twice her age.'
The report includes the information that:
'More than half of the cases dealt with last year by the government's forced marriage unit were related to Pakistan.'
The article also includes this line:
'The victim went to a predominantly Asian school but says she was never made aware of any help available to people like her.'

So is the problem an Asian problem or does it relate mainly to one group of Asians? I don't believe that forced marriage is an issue amongst the Japanese, Thai or Chinese communities but that is not what 'Asian' means to the BBC. Forced marriage is not a common problem amongst Britain's Hindu or Sikh communities although it does occur. So are we really looking at one community for the vast majority of cases? It seems likely as 'More than half of the cases... were related to (the Islamic Republic of) Pakistan (population 97% Muslim). The BBC's mentioning just of Pakistan might make people assume that the rest of the forced marriages were related to Indians (80% Hindu, 13% Muslim), however I wonder if Bangladesh (82% Muslim) might account for a larger number of cases than India.

Tulip Mazumdar like many at the BBC seem incapable of mentioning Islam in an unflattering light let alone criticising Islam; why?

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