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God Save the Queen
(Bolding)
The Gurkhas are Upon you!
Seriously, here's tp Britain looking after th Queen's subjects.
Punjab Province, Pakistan -- Almost free, the young woman dashed breathlessly through the sleepy Pakistani village. She bolted down a sandy lane, her green dress streaming behind her, toward a waiting jeep.
A British diplomat clutching her hastily packed suitcase trailed behind. Last into the vehicle was a bodyguard, a pistol concealed beneath his suit. The doors slammed shut, and the jeep sped off, weaving around donkeys, tractors and a gaggle of curious children.
The 21-year-old Englishwoman sat tensely in the back, staring out the window. Then a flood of words poured out.
"I'm so embarrassed. I'm really scared. I've never done anything like this before," she babbled nervously. "But I had no choice."
In the remote hamlet disappearing into the rearview mirror, the frail-looking woman said, she had been beaten, threatened at gunpoint and forced to marry a stranger.
"I can't trust my family, never again,'' she said. "Next time, they could kill me."
Even now, she still fears retribution and agreed to be interviewed on condition that her name and the place where her relatives live not be printed.
Every year, hundreds of young Western women return to their parents' homeland in Pakistan for a vacation that starts innocently and ends in the ordeal of forced marriage. Most victims come from Britain, which has a long history of immigration from Pakistan, with a few more from northern Europe and a handful from the United States.
Typically, the woman, usually between 18 and 24, visits her cousins for a summer break, to see an ailing relative or to celebrate a cousin's wedding. But as weeks stretch into months, her passport "goes missing," and her return flight is canceled. Mysterious suitors appear on her relatives' doorstep. There is excited talk of marriage.
A sour truth dawns on the woman: The only wedding being planned is her own.
There seems to be no escape. Women cannot move about easily in small-town Pakistan, and male cousins watch her every movement.
But there is one hope for the victims. British diplomats in Pakistan, faced with a flood of forced marriages, have formed a diplomatic team to rescue the unwilling brides from their country cousins and whisk them to safety.
The initiative plunges British officials into a complex world of clashing cultures and personal traumas.
Jon Turner, a mild-mannered consular official in the capital, Islamabad, is part of the four-person team, which carried out 105 rescues last year.
"We will do whatever it takes to get them out," he said.
A relative or boyfriend in Britain often sounds the alarm, he said. Days or weeks of secretive preparations follow, usually through whispered cell phone conversations or furtive text messages, until the rescue date is arranged.
Local police are recruited to provide backup, and an armed guard from the embassy comes along. The element of surprise is crucial, he said, to prevent relatives from shooing the woman out the back door. Finally, Turner's team knocks on the door.
What follows is a wrenching experience for everyone, he admits. Flustered relatives plead with the girl to stay, often resorting to emotional blackmail.
"They say, 'Your father will have a heart attack,' 'Your mother will commit suicide,' or 'You will bring dishonor to our family.' "
The victim is often torn between relief at being rescued and remorse at betraying her family.
"They almost always feel guilty," Turner said. "That's why we try to make it quick."
Afterward, the woman is rushed to Islamabad, where she is lodged at a refuge run by Struggle for Change, a Pakistani women's organization. The diplomats provide an emergency passport and the plane fare home and later drive her to the airport.
Other Western embassies in Pakistan are carefully monitoring the British program. The U.S. consul general in Islamabad, Zandra Flemister, said her officials had dealt with just three cases since March. The women had to make their way to the capital, but the embassy provided emergency travel papers and repatriation loans. Security was a major concern, she said. In one case, a victim who feared abduction by relatives was lodged in the fortified U.S. Embassy compound.
The rescue in Punjab province was relatively straightforward. An hour later, the whippet-thin young woman sat in a cafe in eastern Pakistan, eating a cheeseburger and savoring her freedom.
She blamed her troubles on her father -- a Pakistani-born taxi driver in a northern English town who she said was "a bit old-fashioned."
"He didn't like English clothes," she said. "He burned my jeans once. He didn't like girls going out and about."
Most of all, he didn't like her boyfriend, a British Pakistani whom he considered to be of the wrong caste. So in February, her father sent her on a five-week vacation to her cousin's house in eastern Punjab. By June, she found herself married to a 23-year-old local architect.
Married life was a disaster. Her husband's family was scandalized by her refusal to sleep with him. "It was like living as strangers," she said. "I used to sleep in the house; he was on a bed outside. I think he used to count the stars."
Finally, she told her husband that she was in love with someone else. Retribution was swift.
Her father, who had stayed on in Pakistan to see that the marriage worked out, and her uncle beat her brutally, demanding to know the address of her boyfriend in Britain.
"They say, 'Watch what we will do to him; we will break his legs,' " she recalled.
Her uncle ordered her to surrender her cell phone. When she refused, he pulled a gun.
"He pointed it at my head. He says, 'You don't deserve to live.' I started crying and told him I had thrown the phone away,'' she said. "Then my dad came in and hit me some more. But still I gave them nothing."
She hid the phone in a bag of sanitary napkins. "They wouldn't dream of looking in there," she said, smiling.
Three months later, she was spirited away after her boyfriend contacted the British Home Office and passed her contact information to British authorities in Islamabad.
Three days later, Turner escorted her to the airport. Casting aside her Pakistani clothes, she wore jeans and a T-shirt. When she landed in the British Midlands 12 hours later, her boyfriend was waiting at the gate.
"I couldn't wait for the plane to land. It was wonderful," she said in a phone interview several weeks later.
Forced marriage is quite different from arranged marriage, a valued tradition in South Asia. In a typical arranged marriage, parents help their son or daughter choose a suitable life partner -- often along lines of class, education or wealth -- but leave the ultimate decision to the would-be spouse. In forced marriage, however, the woman has no say.
The problem is widespread, said Khalida Salimi of Struggle for Change. "This is a patriarchal society where women and children are considered the possessions of men."
Efforts by Struggle for Change to open up a debate on the issue have met with stiff and sometimes violent resistance. A Struggle for Change driver helping a couple to elope from the city of Rawalpindi was abducted and badly beaten. One victim being helped by the organization had her nose, tongue and hair chopped off by her own family, Salimi said.
Even for those who escape, like the young woman rescued in Punjab, starting life anew -- often cut off from family and with little financial support -- is not easy. In a phone interview, she said her estranged Pakistani husband was refusing to grant her a divorce, and she was seeking legal advice.
And after the initial elation, her relationship with her boyfriend was coming under pressure.
"It's all messed up," she said despondently. "His mother doesn't approve of me because I'm a runaway girl.''
Although she had escaped forced marriage, she still felt torn between two cultures 4,000 miles apart.
"Pakistan is hard. Being here is hard," she said with a sigh. "No matter what I do, someone seems to be hurt."
A British diplomat clutching her hastily packed suitcase trailed behind. Last into the vehicle was a bodyguard, a pistol concealed beneath his suit. The doors slammed shut, and the jeep sped off, weaving around donkeys, tractors and a gaggle of curious children.
The 21-year-old Englishwoman sat tensely in the back, staring out the window. Then a flood of words poured out.
"I'm so embarrassed. I'm really scared. I've never done anything like this before," she babbled nervously. "But I had no choice."
In the remote hamlet disappearing into the rearview mirror, the frail-looking woman said, she had been beaten, threatened at gunpoint and forced to marry a stranger.
"I can't trust my family, never again,'' she said. "Next time, they could kill me."
Even now, she still fears retribution and agreed to be interviewed on condition that her name and the place where her relatives live not be printed.
Every year, hundreds of young Western women return to their parents' homeland in Pakistan for a vacation that starts innocently and ends in the ordeal of forced marriage. Most victims come from Britain, which has a long history of immigration from Pakistan, with a few more from northern Europe and a handful from the United States.
Typically, the woman, usually between 18 and 24, visits her cousins for a summer break, to see an ailing relative or to celebrate a cousin's wedding. But as weeks stretch into months, her passport "goes missing," and her return flight is canceled. Mysterious suitors appear on her relatives' doorstep. There is excited talk of marriage.
A sour truth dawns on the woman: The only wedding being planned is her own.
There seems to be no escape. Women cannot move about easily in small-town Pakistan, and male cousins watch her every movement.
But there is one hope for the victims. British diplomats in Pakistan, faced with a flood of forced marriages, have formed a diplomatic team to rescue the unwilling brides from their country cousins and whisk them to safety.
The initiative plunges British officials into a complex world of clashing cultures and personal traumas.
Jon Turner, a mild-mannered consular official in the capital, Islamabad, is part of the four-person team, which carried out 105 rescues last year.
"We will do whatever it takes to get them out," he said.
A relative or boyfriend in Britain often sounds the alarm, he said. Days or weeks of secretive preparations follow, usually through whispered cell phone conversations or furtive text messages, until the rescue date is arranged.
Local police are recruited to provide backup, and an armed guard from the embassy comes along. The element of surprise is crucial, he said, to prevent relatives from shooing the woman out the back door. Finally, Turner's team knocks on the door.
What follows is a wrenching experience for everyone, he admits. Flustered relatives plead with the girl to stay, often resorting to emotional blackmail.
"They say, 'Your father will have a heart attack,' 'Your mother will commit suicide,' or 'You will bring dishonor to our family.' "
The victim is often torn between relief at being rescued and remorse at betraying her family.
"They almost always feel guilty," Turner said. "That's why we try to make it quick."
Afterward, the woman is rushed to Islamabad, where she is lodged at a refuge run by Struggle for Change, a Pakistani women's organization. The diplomats provide an emergency passport and the plane fare home and later drive her to the airport.
Other Western embassies in Pakistan are carefully monitoring the British program. The U.S. consul general in Islamabad, Zandra Flemister, said her officials had dealt with just three cases since March. The women had to make their way to the capital, but the embassy provided emergency travel papers and repatriation loans. Security was a major concern, she said. In one case, a victim who feared abduction by relatives was lodged in the fortified U.S. Embassy compound.
The rescue in Punjab province was relatively straightforward. An hour later, the whippet-thin young woman sat in a cafe in eastern Pakistan, eating a cheeseburger and savoring her freedom.
She blamed her troubles on her father -- a Pakistani-born taxi driver in a northern English town who she said was "a bit old-fashioned."
"He didn't like English clothes," she said. "He burned my jeans once. He didn't like girls going out and about."
Most of all, he didn't like her boyfriend, a British Pakistani whom he considered to be of the wrong caste. So in February, her father sent her on a five-week vacation to her cousin's house in eastern Punjab. By June, she found herself married to a 23-year-old local architect.
Married life was a disaster. Her husband's family was scandalized by her refusal to sleep with him. "It was like living as strangers," she said. "I used to sleep in the house; he was on a bed outside. I think he used to count the stars."
Finally, she told her husband that she was in love with someone else. Retribution was swift.
Her father, who had stayed on in Pakistan to see that the marriage worked out, and her uncle beat her brutally, demanding to know the address of her boyfriend in Britain.
"They say, 'Watch what we will do to him; we will break his legs,' " she recalled.
Her uncle ordered her to surrender her cell phone. When she refused, he pulled a gun.
"He pointed it at my head. He says, 'You don't deserve to live.' I started crying and told him I had thrown the phone away,'' she said. "Then my dad came in and hit me some more. But still I gave them nothing."
She hid the phone in a bag of sanitary napkins. "They wouldn't dream of looking in there," she said, smiling.
Three months later, she was spirited away after her boyfriend contacted the British Home Office and passed her contact information to British authorities in Islamabad.
Three days later, Turner escorted her to the airport. Casting aside her Pakistani clothes, she wore jeans and a T-shirt. When she landed in the British Midlands 12 hours later, her boyfriend was waiting at the gate.
"I couldn't wait for the plane to land. It was wonderful," she said in a phone interview several weeks later.
Forced marriage is quite different from arranged marriage, a valued tradition in South Asia. In a typical arranged marriage, parents help their son or daughter choose a suitable life partner -- often along lines of class, education or wealth -- but leave the ultimate decision to the would-be spouse. In forced marriage, however, the woman has no say.
The problem is widespread, said Khalida Salimi of Struggle for Change. "This is a patriarchal society where women and children are considered the possessions of men."
Efforts by Struggle for Change to open up a debate on the issue have met with stiff and sometimes violent resistance. A Struggle for Change driver helping a couple to elope from the city of Rawalpindi was abducted and badly beaten. One victim being helped by the organization had her nose, tongue and hair chopped off by her own family, Salimi said.
Even for those who escape, like the young woman rescued in Punjab, starting life anew -- often cut off from family and with little financial support -- is not easy. In a phone interview, she said her estranged Pakistani husband was refusing to grant her a divorce, and she was seeking legal advice.
And after the initial elation, her relationship with her boyfriend was coming under pressure.
"It's all messed up," she said despondently. "His mother doesn't approve of me because I'm a runaway girl.''
Although she had escaped forced marriage, she still felt torn between two cultures 4,000 miles apart.
"Pakistan is hard. Being here is hard," she said with a sigh. "No matter what I do, someone seems to be hurt."
(Bolding)
The Gurkhas are Upon you!
Seriously, here's tp Britain looking after th Queen's subjects.
****ing dumbasses.
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