Should I Delete That? - Escaping child marriage… with Payzee Mahmod

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

Payzee Mahmod is an activist, campaigner and public speaker who advocates for women and children’s rights. She is campaigner at the KWRO women’s rights organisation and an Obama Leader.She tells us the incredibly moving story of how she became a victim of child marriage at the age of sixteen. After her sister Banaz was murdered in of an ‘honour’ killing - Payzee bravely left her marriage and started a new life. She now campaigns for women and girls around the world - working to end harmful practices including child marriage and female genital mutilation. Payzee tells us about the successful campaign to criminalise child marriage in the UK, what it was like to see her sister’s story told in an ITV drama and her journey to healing. As a content warning, this episode contains some content some people may find distressing - including discussion of violence against women and murder. IKROW is a charity supporting women & girls in the UK at risk of ‘honour’ based abuse, domestic violence, FGM and forced marriage. You can find more information about their work here.Follow @IKROW on Instagram Follow @PayzeeMalika on Instagram Email us on [e-mail] us on Instagram:@shouldideletethat@em_clarkson@alexlight_ldnShould I Delete That? is produced by Faye Lawrence Music by Alex Andrew Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

And from one day to the next, I was literally somebody's wife. I'm 16 years old and I'm someone's wife. Hello and welcome back to Should I Delete That? I'm M Clarkson and Alex Light can't come to the podcast right now because she's in Paris. If there's, if there's one thing she was going to leave us for, it would be a Parisian weekend. end. We did actually record our GBA segment before she left, but kind of on brand kind of sums us up at the moment. Her mic wasn't blood in. So I'm recording this on my own. It's a bit tragic to do the whole thing again. So I won't. I can surmise, I think mostly she had

bads are good. Obviously, it was that we hit five million downloads, which is just so nice. we were reflected on kind of how far we've come and how unexpected the fact that we're still going is for us anyway. And we'll do more of that in time, I'm sure. Oh God, there will have been bad. There will have been awkward. We're in survival mode, the pair of us at the minute. My own awkward, I'll leave you with just before we get into the interview. I went on a romantic weekend away with my husband last week. And first time since Arlo was born that we left we both left her which is kind of wild I mean it's yeah like two years since we've just just been the two of us and we went to a really fancy place we went to Estelle Manor and when we got there you give the you give the like you give the like people there you keys your car keys and they're like oh don't worry we'll unpack for you I'm like whoa thanks awkward don't worry I'll just grab my bag and they're like no no no no it's okay it's fine and then they were like no no no honestly it's fine I was like okay fine cool you grab the bag we go to our room, my car is such a shit heap, like I'm so embarrassed by the state of the car

under normal circumstances, never more so than in this moment. We walk into the room and they've unpacked the whole car. And when I tell you, that car was full of more shit than I care to mention. We're talking, I had four, I was there for one night and they unpacked four pairs of shoes. They unpacked, like, there were three jackets. The car's a jumping ground and bless them, they'd brought everything in because I didn't have time to say, don't worry, it's just the bag. Anyway, then out of politeness and awkwardness, mostly, I felt the need, I felt compelled to wear everything

that had been bought in from the car in case anybody who'd brought it in saw me. It was Thomas, it was a man called Thomas, and I was just so scared of seeing him again. I was like, every time I see him, I need to be wearing one of those garments. So he knows nothing he did was wasted. It was horrible.

I mean, it was an amazing weekend, but it was, I was always, I didn't handle that element. Well, I don't know, I don't know if I could get on board with that as a lifestyle. I, I'm too nosy. I, if I were a valet, is that I called? If I were a I would, I would go through glove compartments, I would be arrested. Whatever the real life GDPR is, I'd be done for. I'd be looking for the vibrate, I'd be, I'd be fired. Anyway, I can't remember the rest. I can't remember the rest of it.

So we'll just, we'll skim past it. And get into today's interview. We were blown away by Paisie. When we first read her story, we knew we had to have her on. And we were so grateful when she said yes. But the episode surpassed our very high expectations. And that's saying something. But she is literally, Alex and I talked about this in the,

now missing GBA files, the second she walked in, we both fell in love with her. Like, it was instantaneous. She is the coolest, most incredible woman with an aura that you will, I mean, you'll pick up on it over the mic. She was just the, just the most phenomenal person. I have thought about her pretty much every day since I really want to be her friend and I don't really know how to facilitate it. I know she has a child. So I keep thinking like, okay, I could, I could do that thing. Like, you know, Hugh Grant and about a boy where he pretends he's got a child and then like that's how he like gets his in and then I'm like hang on wait no I don't need to pretend I've got a child I've just got a child I could just I could go down but it's weird

and I've now ever thought it now I've said all this you'll never want to see me anyway so I think I'm going to have to let her go but the episode thankfully is immortalised we're about to play it for you now but before we do I just want to put a trigger warning this was an incredibly tough conversation by virtue of the fact that Paisie has had a very tough life she talks about the fact that she was coerced into child marriage and we talk a lot about violence against women and girls we talk about murder and if this episode feels too heavy for you right now then of course give it a mess and we'll see you on Thursday otherwise I hope you enjoy Paisie as much as we did hi Paisie hello thank you so much for going to talk to us I like that we have

to say like hi as if we haven't we've been talking at length half an hour already. Thank you so much for coming to speak to us. We read your story and immediately were desperate to talk to you and to have you come on the pod and we're really, really flattered that you said, yeah, so thank you. Of course. It would be amazing if you wouldn't mind that this is like a huge opener, but if you could tell us a little bit about yourself and your story and what led you to the activism that you do to give everyone an idea of where you've come from. Of course. I just want to start by saying thank you so much for having me, a big fan of your podcast. So it's really nice to be here. Thank you. Okay, so I am, I guess I described myself as a campaigner, a consultant and someone who's experienced female genital mutilation and also child marriage. So I'm one of five girls in my family and my parents came to the UK during the late 90s and we came from Iran. So I spent 11 years of my life being brought up in Iran. And we've which was quite tough, so big family obviously came from quite a difficult background in terms of

my parents fleeing war. And then when we settled here in the UK, it was really to give me and my sisters a better life, better opportunities, you know, access to education. But actually my family things took a turn for the worst really quickly. So about a few years after we came to this country, my sister, my second eldest, had reported to the school that she's been experiencing abuse at home, particularly verbal abuse and controlling behaviors from my father. So at that point, the school had contacted social services and my sister was removed from the house. So when social services removed her, they didn't really inquire about the rest of me and my sisters. And it was really just kind of, she was there one day and then she was gone

and haven't spoken since. So I was around, I think she was about 17, I would say. So I was about 12 or 13. So yeah, I haven't spoken to her. She literally left our family home. We stopped having contact with her. But the thing is, the repercussions of that particular event meant that the community that I'm from the Kurdish community really cast my family out and saw my dad as someone who couldn't control his children and didn't want to associate with him.

So there was a lot of community backlash for that event. And so in a, I guess, in a strange way, my dad was trying to make up for what had happened. for, you know, the loss of his reputation. And someone had approached him to marry my sister, who was a year older than me, my sister, Benaz. And she was married really quickly. She was 17 at the time.

She was at college, and she was married to this stranger. And then a few months later, basically the exact same thing happened to me. So within six months, both me and my sister Benaz were married to complete strangers. I was 16 at the time. And I remember the conversation with my mom. mom, it was really brief. She basically said to me, your dad wants you to marry this person. And if you can imagine, obviously at 16, you know, having a conversation like that with your parents, especially your parents who are quite conservative, I couldn't say no. And for me,

that most of the reason I couldn't say no is because the previous year, when I was 15, I was doing my GCSEs, my dad asked me to marry someone else. And my reaction to that was really, you know, quite immature as it would be because you're 15. And that really left a stain. on our relationship. And from that point, I felt like my dad wasn't really talking to me, wasn't acknowledging me, he was kind of just ignoring me and just really showing me that he wasn't pleased with what I'd said. So the following year when I was 16 and it came up again, I just felt like I don't want my dad to ignore me again, to not love me. I wanted him to love me. So I just said, I want you to do whatever makes you happy and kind of trusted my parents.

But I knew, obviously, deep down, that's not what I wanted. All my friends were going to college and dressing up. You know, you're 16. What do you know about marriage? You're 16. But in those six months, basically, I got married. My sister got married. She dropped out of college.

She moved to Birmingham with her husband. And then I was moved to Croydon with my husband. And from one day to the next, I was literally a married, like somebody's wife. I'm 16 years old and I'm someone's wife. I got pregnant really quickly without actually understanding. how that happened because I hadn't accessed sex education. So I didn't even know that this act would lead to me getting pregnant. And it really shows because my mom saw that I was pregnant before I knew. I'd missed my periods, but I didn't really put two and two together. I was so

young. And one day, I remember she was cooking and she said to me, why do you make those faces? And I just said to my mom, I'm going to throw up. This is making me feel sick. And she said, you look different, you should check if you're pregnant. I remember going to the GP. And the GP said, you know, do the urine sample. And when I did it, she said, yeah, you're actually pregnant. Obviously, I didn't understand the full, you know, reality, the concept of that. I just said to her, I don't want to have a baby.

Can you just remove it? Obviously, a really naive answer. But I just thought, I don't know, like she'd give me a tablet or something. And at that point, she referred me on to have an abortion. which again had no idea. I'd never even heard of the word. So she referred me to this abortion clinic. I went there and they gave me a gown and I was put to sleep, having no idea what was going to happen, that this was literally a whole surgery, a whole procedure. So it's really traumatizing. Thank God I did that. And actually, luckily for me, one of my friends at college

told me about this contraceptive method that you can use. So at that point, I got this thing in my arm um the coil i think they call it the implant yeah the implant so i got that and my husband kept saying i want to have a family i want you to get pregnant and i just kept saying i don't know why i'm not getting pregnant you never told him about the abortion no no no he knew about the abortion yeah he knew my whole family knew he didn't know about the contraceptive implant but he knew about the abortion because i was really really determined i'm not having a baby in my mind even though i was really young if I had a baby with this man, I'm stuck forever. This is my life forever. And I guess when you're that young, you're also quite hopeful. I just kept thinking one day I am going to get away from this man. I don't

know how, but I'm going to do it. So I was married for two years. I didn't get pregnant again in those two years than God. So the implant worked. And then within those two years, basically at some point my sister who was also married Benaz, me and her lived together with our husbands. So we went in this flat, in this two bedroom flat, me, my husband and her and her husband. And I think it was at this point that we really saw, okay, both of our relationships are really abusive and this is not right. And we started really confining in each other and telling each other and hearing also because we were living in the same house, what was going on. And then my sister just started saying to my parents, she's leaving him she doesn't want to be with him but my parents were against there they weren't

supportive of that decision but then one summer um she in 2005 she just left she went back to my parents and she said she's not going back and at that point she met somebody new and once again our community had found out that she was still married but having you know dating somebody which they really looked down on and saw that as a big you know shame on our family And at this point, both her and the boyfriend, who was also Kurdish, started receiving a lot of backlash and threats, harassment, people following them. And so she started going to the police, reporting these, you know, these talking incidents and people following her, calling her, harassing her, but the police didn't really take it seriously. And within about a few months in 2006, things really escalated one day in January, she went missing. This was just after she turned 21.

She went missing and I was still married at this point. Her boyfriend contacted the police and said she's missing. And they opened this huge investigation, missing person, and realized, actually, we've got all these reports from her. She has been in genuine danger. So let's start looking at the people that she's reported. And their investigation basically led them a few months to discover that my sister was in fact murdered. by the same people that she was reporting to the police for leaving her marriage, basically.

And in some, I guess, bitter, twisted way, that's actually what enabled me to get out of my marriage because after that happened, I just knew there's no way I can stay in this marriage. And I went against my family. It was really hard. I did everything I could. Just really put my foot down.

and said, I'm not going back to my husband. That is so brave. Yeah. I mean, I think my sister, she gave me a lot of strength because just her even leaving her husband was really brave and then saying she wants to be with someone else. The community I come from, girls don't really make decisions like that themselves.

They don't really, you know, stand up to the patriarchal norms that are kind of set out for them and they're raised in a certain way and they live their lives in a certain way. They don't really have much say in these big decisions. And so, you know, she was really brave. And I think it makes me really sad that something like that had to happen for me to actually be able to get out of my marriage.

But it's really, thanks to her, that I'm able to be here today and not lead a completely different life. Gosh, I'm so sorry for what you've been through. That's just awful. With your sisters, Killets, would they ever convicted, were they found charged? Yeah, they were actually, yeah. So five people in total. were tried and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Wow. Yeah. Was her husband among those? He wasn't. Even though personally, I feel he contributed to the abuse that she was receiving because he was essentially forcing her to stay married, even though she didn't want to be married to him anymore. He was never seen as someone that contributed to any of this.

So he continued on with his life and lived happily ever after. Wow. Yeah. Who were the killers that? So actually my dad, my uncle, and three of the men from the Kurdish community are all in prison and we're all found guilty of my sister's matter. Okay. Yeah. And that is, it's an honour killing in my writing? Yes, yeah. So it's called an honour killing because really the foundation for why girls are punished in this way, most of the time girls, because it happens to men too.

It doesn't really make sense because if you think about it, it's really a very dishonourable thing to do. But the intent is that by doing this kind of evil act, this really, you know, inhumane, violent act, they're saving the family honour. So it's done in the name of honour. That's really the motivation behind this kind of crime. You know how sometimes we hear passion crime and, you know, this is the motivation for it. It's to save the family honour in some really strange way. I think we need to have such a look at the language that we use. I've never even thought about the passion.

some of the headlines that you'll read in relation to violence against women yeah the language is really shocking because it kind of removes also a bit of I guess responsibility because there's kind of accountability very little accountability for the perpetrator and there's almost a reason for why women have to die

yeah for a second inevitability that has had to happen yeah because of this as opposed to yeah wow I'm so sorry thank you how did you go about rebuilding your life from there because I imagine that was an earth shattering experience I think if I'm honest I'm still rebuilding yeah I still have therapy I'm a somewhat new mom and that has added a whole new layer of healing for my journey obviously you see this version of me now and I've only been in this space I'd say about

five years but genuinely the first decade of after my sister had passed and I got out of my marriage, it was what I would call a decade of destruction. I was really, really, just not in a good place. I was severely depressed. I was on a lot of medication prescribed and illegal substances, to be really honest with you, alcohol abuse.

I lived a really dangerous, very, very dangerous lifestyle because I just, I didn't understand why any of the things that had happened in my life happened. And it was, it was just so, there were so many things, you know, within such a short space of time, coming to this new country, this new city, I didn't speak English, I was just discovering this new world, making friends, and then all of a sudden it's like, I've lost one sister this way, I lose another sister, my dad goes to prison, I'm married, I'm divorced. It's like, there was so much that happened. So it wasn't, it wasn't at all like pretty healing. It was really, really ugly. And I would say, only in the last five years, I've actually started making better choices, healthier choices for myself, you know, my health, my body, my mental health, and still really still on that journey because adding being a mum to all of this just for me adds a whole new layer of how did this even happen. Right. The protective fierce protection you feel for your baby. I imagine it's hard to

grapple with the fact that that wasn't there for you and your sister yeah it is because I think in some ways in my parenting I overcompensate and I see that I I guess we're all trying to heal our inner child from something you know like one thing or another and for me it's obviously really extreme things so sometimes actually even being a mum I'm just overcompensating because I want to make sure that my son is only two and a half and I want him to feel loved respected you know valued at all times and so So sometimes actually one of the challenges I have being a mum is it hurts to love him in a way that I wasn't loved.

It's quite double, you know, double-sided because you want to love your child and give them the best. But in some weird way it hurts you because you didn't feel that love that, you know, that attention. Please don't answer if you're not comfortable with this question. But do you still have a relationship with your mom? I do. You do. Okay.

I think, how would I describe it? my relationship with my mum. It's like an ongoing, again, like healing process. It will never be straightforward. But I think once again, just becoming a mum myself has added, I guess, a different understanding for my mum. Because I recognise in a lot of ways my mum is a victim too, especially when you have like very patriarchal norms in communities like mine. Mothers also don't and get a big say in what happens to their children and the choices that I made for them. So I kind of recognize in some way

she's also like a secondary victim. And my heart really breaks for her because I see she also had a really difficult upbringing. My mom is illiterate so she never had the opportunity to go to school, to learn, to have certain life experiences. She never worked. You know, she dedicated her whole life, a whole being to her children and her husband and her community. and that really makes me sad for her

because I wish she had more I wish she could do more with her life so I try and be somewhat understanding and compassionate but it's also quite difficult because a part of me will always be like why didn't you just tell me to run away you know why didn't you just give me 50 pounds and say just get on a train

and I don't know go somewhere else so yeah it's quite difficult to balance yeah but I think it's one of of those my mom's quite old you know she's 75 and that always is something that hits me I think you know I don't know how long I'm going to have her around for so I try and make the most of my relationship but it's not straightforward yeah yeah that's so big of you and but you're right it's so complicated in the in the love you have for your son it's just it's painful yeah that you didn't get it in the way that you needed it and I'm just really

sorry for you and sorry for your sister and just the whole situation is just it's unthinkable. I'm really astounded at what it must have taken you to push for a divorce. Having been in a parallel situation to your sister, having seen exactly what happened to her, how logistically even did that come to be? How were you able to escape from the marriage that you were in? So honestly, when I think back, I kind of see, when you like see yourself, I don't know if you ever have visions of yourself where you can see yourself, like kind of like from a bird's eye view. And I see my younger self and I just think I literally had one mission was I need to give myself another shot at life. This can't be my life.

And I thought a lot about like I was really young, but the fact that I come, you know, my family escaped war. I was born during a war. We then left Iran, came here. It was a really difficult journey so for me it was like this can't be it this can't be my life i i have to see more i have to travel i have to go to university i was the first in my family to go to university it was something that was like i need to do this you know i think i just had all these goals in my mind i really wanted to achieve um logistically it was it was literally impossible to get out of that marriage because the first stage was i had to get an islamic divorce so an imam came to my parents home and the imam was actually trying to convince me. So can you imagine I'm 18 years old? He's trying to convince me,

you know, marriages are difficult, it's a compromise, you know, the whole spiel, he's literally giving it to me. And there's this kind of like older man, he's like, you know, in his 50s. And I'm just saying to him, like, I don't care. I just want a divorce. And he's like, you know, you need to be patient and you need to soften up and you need to have some understanding and trying to bring religion into it almost just to brainwash me. And I was so determined. so it almost felt like I had like different people that had to like battle through for me the moment that I got my husband to say he wanted to divorce me that was like I can take on the world because this was someone that he was older than me he was you know very like verbally abusive it was quite

controlling so when that happened I thought the world is my oyster like you know what is the worst that can happen so then after my Islamic divorce um for me I was like okay can we throw a party like literally I was so excited because that was like I was grieving inside because my sister had just died but in some ways I thought I can actually have a life now I can be the 18 year old I am I can go to university can start my life over so my family were obviously really upset for them it was like you know a really sad day which I couldn't comprehend at the time because I was 18 and like emotionally quite immature you know so that was the first step the second step was the legal divorce so I remember really very very very very

I went to Tooting High Street and I just walked around and looked for solicitors. And I saw this sign. I still have the papers and everything. I saw this sign and it said, family solicitors. And I thought, let me go and ask. I met this lady. And I said, I've got this problem. I'm getting divorced. And she didn't ask any questions, which really blows my mind because I was so young. And she was like, okay, so what do you want? I said, I want to get a divorce. And she was okay, leaving your details. Gave her my postal address because, you know, nothing was on email then. I'm talking about early 2000, so she wrote to me at my parents' home where I lived and asked me for my husband's address, gave them the address, and started that process.

I was literally doing it on my own. I had no idea what that whole thing even looked like, the process, but it was just like one step at a time. And then that started, which took a few years because he was being really difficult with it. I guess this was some kind of mental abuse that he was still trying to. to have this control over me. He wouldn't agree to things.

He wasn't signing the papers. Finally, it happened and I got my divorce. So logistically, it was really, really hard. I don't know how I did it. I literally cannot tell you what gave me such drive. My younger self also was seeing that my sister literally died for wanting a life. And it was just giving me so much anger and just so much. angry energy to do something about my life and also to show like myself this is not going to happen

to me and my husband at the time before I divorced him he was making threats to me and he was saying things like using my sister's death against me like really triggering things like this could happen to you too and I just thought I have to get out and actually one thing that I should give credit to is at the time of my sister's death there was a lot of police presence in my life okay so I kind of used that to my advantage as well. At one point, which I think for him was that's it. I asked the police if they can put a safety alarm in my house, and it was like this big black box.

And when he asked me what it was, I told him that it was CCTV. And astonishingly, he believed me. And he was like, what do you mean you put CCTV in the house? Why would you do that? They're spying on me. And I said, well, if you don't have anything to hide, why do you care that they've put CCTV in our house? And he said, that's it.

I'm taking you back to your parents. I don't want anything to do with you. And I was like, okay, mission accomplished. That's literally all I need is for you to do that. And actually, when I think back to the two years I was married, I guess this was my, you know, my survival instincts kicking in. I was trying really hard through my behavior to make him dislike me. I remember I would like wear really big jewelry and I'd wear revealing clothes

because he didn't like it. I'd have, like, friends at college that were boys because he was not happy with those things. I'd, you know, switch off my phone. I was kind of trying to work him towards that point where he would say, she's not the one for me, she's not right for me, which obviously should have been his initial reaction anyway because I'm 16.

What do you want with a 16-year-old? He was in his late 20s. Late 20s. Yeah, so, you know, it was, when I think of it, it's just, you know, it's kind of, legalised child abuse isn't it? Because in any other context we would be like questioning what's going on here

but in this context it was completely accepted by everyone around us and encouraged by everyone around you know it was facilitated by everyone around you it wasn't like you were young and ran off to Gretna Green and like eloped you were forced into the situation

yeah And on the back of that, you've done a lot of campaigning to stop other 16-year-olds being put in this position. And the law has now changed in the UK to criminalise child marriage, which is an insane sentence. I know. That's a day that it's only just happened. Yeah, last year. Last year. Yeah, yeah.

That's nuts. is really, really crazy. This law, I mean, it's so outdated. Initially it was brought in so that parents could essentially consent to who their children are marrying because at the time, I'm talking like 70, 80 years ago, property and the value of how much money people had was a big thing. It was a bit transactional marriage, you know, all those years ago. I think it's changed a lot now the way we view marriage. So it's a really outdated law. And when we first started talking about this. So actually, I should give you context as to how I even started talking about this, obviously my own experience, but there was a charity and organisation, I Crow. When my sister's

case was in the old Bailey, they were coming to court every day and they had posters and banners with her face on it. And they were basically campaigning that this issue was taken seriously. Because previously, before my sister was murdered, there was another similar case in the UK. And in that case, the judge had said he doesn't want to give a full life sentence to the father because he took into consideration the community pressure. So in my sister's case, the charity were saying, no, this has to be taken seriously. We can't excuse this behavior. So about five years ago, when I thought, okay, I want to work in this area, I want to do something with everything that I've been through, I don't want to just live my life like normal. I thought, let me see if they still exist.

And I remember tapping into Google, Kurdish organization, because they stand for the Iranian and Kurdish rights women organization. And they came up. And I just sent an email. It was quite angry. I remember being like, hello, this is who I am. I really want to work with you. Can you please get back to me, ASAP? And I remember they didn't come back to me because they had someone on Matt leave, the campaigner at the time. And then two days later, I went back with another angry email. I still have the email. And I basically went back. And I was like, hello, can someone get back to me? I'm really passionate. I want to work with you. And then they got back to me and then we started, you know, talking and forming a relationship. And they said to me at the time that they were trying to basically run this campaign to change the legal age of marriage. And I was like, oh my God, that's, that happened to me. I was married at 16 and went to a registry office. And so over the course of like, you know, short span of time, started working on a campaign, started taking it to Parliament through a private members bill. and it just started getting traction and I was doing a lot of media and making the issue quite real

because as you said when you hear the words child marriage I don't think people really put that into context what does that mean because in a way it's quite the language around it's quite digestible isn't it we're not saying child rape which is essentially what it is we're saying child marriage because marriage is some acceptable you know way of living as a family it's It's really softened language, isn't it? Yeah. And so, yeah, we campaigned for it. And one thing that was really important was to remove any exception. Because for us, the fact that there was parental consent on something like marriage

clearly shows that this is not a decision that children should be making anyway. We understand that. It's not something we take lightly. So it was to remove that and set a blanket age for all kinds of marriage, which is 18. That's what the United Nations defines as someone who's a child, someone under 18 so it's really in line with human rights and you know violations of children and human violations so yeah we campaigned it was a long journey a few years it took us a while I would say for the government to actually see this was an issue um I think like most people

when I tell them about it they say what do you mean like this is happening in the UK um and not you know they they envision this to happen like in India or in Afghanistan or in Iraq or in Iran and it's not really an issue that people can can visualize happening here but at the same time we have this law so it happens because it's allowed it's completely legal you know and even when I was at school I couldn't have said anything to teachers for example because it was legal teachers couldn't have done anything about it was completely acceptable in our society I mean I'm not saying that people are marrying every day at 16 and like lovebirds But this is very specific in coercion and, you know, controlling girls specifically in communities that are quite conservative and believe that their daughters can't have relationships, they need to marry when they want, or in the case of my family, make up for the family's reputation.

Use the girl as a way to raise their own reputation. It was 16. Prior to the law changing, you could get married at 16. Yes, yeah, with your parents' consent. Yeah. That's not. Isn't it? Yeah. And it is wild that it was just so acceptable.

Because I remember, do you remember when we were kids and you'd get like a birthday card and it would be like, oh, you're 16, these are all the things you can do at this age. Get married. Yeah, you can get married. Yeah. But it's so funny with your parents' consent when you can't even consent yourself. That's it. Like, so this shows how outdated this law is.

It doesn't even fit within our society. No. You know, we're not, we don't want 16-year-olds to be married. 16-year-olds can't make decisions that are so big and shouldn't. They have their whole lives ahead of them. We're saying that also legally we're saying everyone should be in education or training until 18. But the truth is I was taken out of college many times by my husband. He didn't want me to study.

So girls can't access education. They usually have, if I was, you know, to keep my pregnancy, I would have had like, what, an 18, 19-year-old now and literally lost my own childhood. by having a child. And that's the picture. I mean, obviously we have the, we had 16 here. In lots and lots of different countries, to this day, the age of marriage is even lower. I mean, like 14.

I was in Spain yesterday. I was in Barcelona. We were talking about this issue. And Spain only changed their legal age of marriage in 2014, from 14 to 16. Wow. If you're going to change it and make all the admin around changing it, why change it to 16? So their legal age. Exactly, but their legal age is 18.

However, this is where like loopholes and grey areas come in. But you can still get married at 16 if your parents consent. Why do we need loopholes with it though? Right? You should just be a straightforward law. Yeah, and I think it is painted is this idea that it is like college sweetheart's running off together when in reality the wildly problematic part of this beyond the legal binding of two people together is the fact that you were set to marry a stranger who was over a decade older

than you and if that was a relationship we'd all be like everyone's like well yeah but it's because it's a marriage you say like the language is so important around it god it's so messed up how grown up children I mean how grown up girls yeah are forced to be Because by taking you from a girl and making you a wife. Yeah. With a title. Yes. You lose that childhood because of a title that has been created for something that's not for children.

I think you were saying before, you know, we do imagine that this is a problem that affects those in other countries. That this is a cultural issue that doesn't affect people within the UK. But that's not the case at all this is happening in the UK all the time. Yeah. And that's what a big part of your campaigning has been. Yeah, it was because when we first started talking about it, that was literally the first thing that would come up. Like, even in members of parliament, they would say, but it doesn't happen here. No, it does happen here because like we work with girls all the time, the organization that I work

for. There are so many organizations that are buy-on for. So, you know, for women from minorities and women from various communities, people are coming forward saying, I'm at risk. We're getting calls from teachers saying this girl has been taken out of school. She's going back home we think is for the, you know, purposes of marriage. This happens. Police are informed all the time. So it's not something that only happens outside of the UK. It does happen here. And the law has enabled that to happen. And also one of the things that also enabled it to happen was the fact that if somebody has a religious or a customary or a traditional marriage, you don't have to register that. There is no requirement. So if, let's say, a girl was getting married in a religious

ceremony, you know, just down the road, she's 15 years old. There is no requirement currently, legally, to actually register that marriage. So it's another loophole. Were you met with any resistance with your campaigning from people in your community? Yeah, I was. Honestly, and not even just in my own community, because I think it's one of those conversations. People are like, it's too hard for them to even engage in. It's such a harsh reality that sometimes people just reject it. In my own community at first, people thought I was crazy for speaking out. People thought that, yeah, you're married at 16. So what? It's like it's not such a big deal. It happens to girls all the time. Just you're out of it now. Get on with your life. Why are you still talking about it?

People actually said that to me. Why are you putting your business out there and dishing your dirty laundry? And for me, it was like, it's more than dirty laundry. This is not something that should happen to anyone else. And if I can do that by speaking, about it, that that's the idea that someone can hear it, someone can listen to it and actually realize, oh, this is what I'm at risk of, whether it's someone who's, you know, going through that right now or has gone through that. And that's the kind of messages I get all the time from girls, like whether they're at risk or they've gone through this already or someone in their community has. So I got used to the backlash pretty quickly because I knew it wasn't

going to be easy. I kind of, I was always prepared for backlash. But I mean, in saying that, even within the media. I was getting, every time I was doing interview, lots and lots of backlash, people literally saying like, this girl is like, you know, talking about this issue, but it's, it's Islamic issue, it's, you know, it's their community, it's their culture, and it doesn't happen in the UK, even though actually, through my campaigning. I met girls that were not from my community, met girls from various different communities who had experienced marriage at 16. I was literally in New York a few weeks ago. And there's a senator. her, she stood up on stage with me.

She was married at 16 and she's against child marriage. And she said that she married off her own will, but the man was older and looking back, that should have not been something she ever had access to because people around her encouraged it. But she was being coerced. She's a child. If you're telling a child, like, oh, yeah, do this, do that. How many children can actually recognize coercion?

Of course, especially with that dynamic as well, the power dynamic. of your husband being so much older than you and pressure from your family. Exactly. There's no chance. Yeah. I even hate that, like people saying, oh, you're airing a dirty laundry. Yeah. It's your trauma.

Yeah. It's not dirty laundry. It's your trauma that was inflicted on you outside of your control. It was a crime. Yeah. You were a victim of a crime. Yeah. Exactly.

I think the other thing is that your sister was murdered in the UK after having reported the threats that she had received to the police, multiple times which were ignored like there is a systemic that beyond the the fact that she was married and and you know it's not that hard to grasp that that happens given that and it was only like I think it was like 1991 that domestic violence was even recognized within a marriage in this country so yeah we can see how it happens or we can understand how it happens but it's such a um such an important part of this that the law that the conversation happens to recognize that just because something's legal, it doesn't make it right?

Yes, exactly. And it feels like such a failing for your sister on top of everything else that you have both been through, that she was then failed by the police and by not being taken seriously. And that sort of takes it out of ever being able to just be a cultural conversation or an isolated conversation or a, it doesn't happen here conversation because it's like that's just that she was a victim. of something that happens to women. Absolutely, yeah.

All over the, I mean all over the world, but all over the country at all ages. Yeah. No, it doesn't discriminate. And I think what you mentioned about it being systemic, that's literally spot on because even the police, they, I guess their cultural bias of my sister got in the way of actually helping her because they didn't believe her.

Well, that was what I was going to ask. Do you think that that played a part in there? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, following on, I work a lot with the police now, I do a lot of training with the police because, I think it's important. We live in a multicultural society.

And if you don't recognize a form of abuse, how can you tackle it? If someone comes to you and says, I'm experiencing catfishing, but then you've not been trained on catfishing, you don't know about it. How can you take the right measures to protect that person and offer them any support or resources? In my sister's case, she was going to the police and saying she made more than five reports, like official reports. Now, can you imagine coming from such a traumatic.

you know, experience and setting to give yourself the bravery, the courage to say, I'm going to the police five times on different occasions. It takes a lot to do that. You know, when you report a crime of abuse, it takes so much from the victim to say, I'm going to go and do that. It's really, it happens in stages. So she was doing that, she was going to the police, she was even giving names of people to the police.

And they just thought she was exaggerating. But she was telling the police, one of the things that is really striking, my sister gave the police the last time she went, and she gave them a handwritten note. And that handwritten note is actually, it's on the internet somewhere. I've seen it published in newspapers. In her own writing, she has written, if something happens to me, this is who it is. And the people that she named on that list are the people that are in prison. She almost did the work for the police in some way.

She did a lot of the investigation herself. And because you said it is systemic, it goes to show that on so many levels, people just don't take violence against women and girls seriously and don't respond timely enough. Because my sister, sadly, wasn't the last woman who experienced something like that and was murdered. It's happened after my sister's death. And until everybody recognizes the different forms of abuse,

different forms of abuse that exist we can't tackle it so it requires actually people opening up their mindsets and saying right okay all these things are possible they do happen so what do we need to look for and how do we support the people experiencing it otherwise we just continue to say I don't think it really happens here and then we're just oblivious to it when it's in front of us you know so I think it plays a big role in how women are supported because of how they present because I think there's this idea. I was reading an Instagram infographic about this, the perfect victim.

You know, if you look a certain way, you present a certain way, you're just not taken seriously. Well, it is like they've always, there's always been the way of putting the owners back on the woman. Yeah, victim lane. Whether it be she was drunk or she was wearing this or she was married to him or, you know,

and it's putting the blame on your culture, which actually is problematic. in a whole different way to just write off all the victims within one subsect of our society because it's a culture that we don't understand or that isn't widely understood

by, you know, like you say, it's so important that you're doing the training that you are but it's such a frightening way that we turn a blind eye to whip to girl. It's not calling the women, your girl, there's children, who are married. I think we complicate it

because the moment we're like, oh, it's a cultural issue. It's so simple, like patriarch exists. I mean, this is what upholds society, right? It was built for men by men. Women were left out of so many conversations and still are. So I think to make it really straightforward, it's something that exists everywhere in the world.

We see Femocide, like from this corner of the world to this corner. We see rape from, it happens everywhere. And whenever I speak to people and they say, but it's child marriage cultural, I always say, well we live in Europe right and these laws are set in Europe so culture has nothing to do with it this is universal it's global do you know that in America every state has a different age of marriage you know like if you want to change something in America it's super complicated

because you have to go state by state in some states you can get married at 12 at 14 like California you can get married at any age and it's not a crime Courtney Sondon got married super young and as subsequently said a lot about how they were too young to be getting married. Yeah. But that's, I never, does it occur to you? Because when I read that as a teenager, I was like, wow, look at that relationship. How weird.

And I remember thinking it was weird rather than it was like incredibly illegal and problematic. Very wrong. Yeah. Your sister's story and your family story was, I mean, it was depicted in an ITV drama called honour. firstly did anyone come to you about permission for that your family permission no no this is another thing like media is so interesting because we talked we talked a little bit about language and how like especially when it comes to women and girls what language is used and how we just don't send to the victim when this happened when this this drama was being filmed I actually

found out about it because I was working with that charity and they said did you know that there's this big show and I was like what no no one asked us no one even told us and then they connected me to the to the team who I still have a relationship with but in terms of initially nobody asked permission nobody actually made us aware which is quite sad because the most surreal thing you will ever experience is seeing a TV show about your family but your watch it's really especially on something like that I mean If it was something amazing and like super positive, obviously we would all want to see that. But this was really like really heartbreaking and really, really difficult to watch.

And then actually recently they sold it to Netflix. I don't know if you saw that. Yes, it was sold to Netflix. And again, going back to like media, I had to go to social media and to talk about the fact that even in the title of the show, my sister wasn't even named. They said a girl, you know, from London, I think he said, Muslim girl. The description was very, basically, it was about my sister, but not about her. Right. It was like, this, this happened to this girl in London and the police solved the crime. It was, it revolved around the police woman, right? Yes, yeah. It was like from her, her perspective, yeah.

Which I think is really important because obviously massive props to the police officer who, you know, who worked on the case and took the case to the court because I think, especially as a woman that's really touching. She fought all the way for this case to be successful. So massive, massive props to her. But obviously, emotionally, the story is about my sister from someone else's perspective. So I kind of like separate her and the people who made the documentary. And that was just really hard. It was because obviously my ideal world, my sister is the center of, you know,

I want to see her really depicted. I want to see who she was who was this girl what does she like you know what was she what was her dreams but all we saw from the show was how she was really like

tragically murdered and what happened in the aftermath and that tends to be the case for these stories to not come to you I mean it's it's literally setting the intention that like we have no interest in learning anything about this woman

because you'd imagine due diligence research at the very least would dictate that you looked beyond to the legality of it and look to the human being. Yeah. And it happens so often. You always see these shows and these like pieces written about women who died

and it will be like the perpetrator kind of focused and she's just not the centre. The woman is not the centre. And that's one of the hardest things. I mean, everything I ever read about Oscar Pistorius and what he did is always like him, him, him, his achievements, who he is, what he did. And it's like the woman literally died. like who is she who was this person all we know is ultimately how she died and for me it's like it's so sad that that's how we talk about victims it's so dehumanizing it really is I want to know

who this woman was you know I want to connect with her I want to feel like I relate to her in some way perhaps she liked something that I can relate to you know it just humanizes the person as opposed to a statistic in a way were you able to fact Did they come to you, once you established your relationship with the team, did they come to you for, like, fact checking? No, it was too late. They had, like, basically filmed everything. I can't believe it.

Yeah, it was really too late. And just horrible for your three of the sisters as well. Yeah, yeah, it was really hard as your family. Everything. It was really hard to watch. And, I mean, I think this is one of the things because they couldn't, they didn't speak to anybody from, like, my family. When you watched it, it was like, it was hard to recognize.

because they obviously had this idea of what the family home was like, setting, et cetera. So they did their own, you know, remake of that. And ultimately, the reason people make things like that, films about these kind of stories is it's all about sensationism and trying to get as much people to watch it as possible. So that's really hard to grasp with because that's real life. This is somebody's life. And now it's like on a sensationalized platform. It's, yeah, it's really hard. And I guess if they say based on true events, they've got free reign then to just fictionalize whatever they want.

Yeah, yeah, that's really hard. Yeah, it's so hard. Do you feel in any way that there was a benefit to them doing that documentary? I think in some ways awareness, but how much can you educate people through a two-episode documentary that is just really emotionally gripping? I'm just wondering if I didn't know this issue would I watch it and be like that was really educational I've learned something or would I be like

wow that's I was going to swear oh I can swear okay or how many people are going to watch them and be like that's fucked up I'm pissed that's happening so it's weighing up was it done in an educational manner

does it teach people things can we walk away and say okay I'm going to tell my friends about this have you heard of this Have you heard of this woman? Have you heard about what happened and, you know, have you worked ever on something like this? Are you getting training on this? You know, if you have teacher friends, police officer friends.

But I think it was so, I don't know if you guys watched it, but it was, it's really, really heavy. Yeah. It's really, like, very tragic. As someone who is inside the story, even for me, it's really heavy. It's hard hitting. So I think they could have been. maybe but it's so hard to do that in like 60 minutes and it's at the end of the day I'm going to

call it what it is it's for entertainment isn't it right right and they lead into the sensationalism yeah yeah I'm just so sorry for what you've been through but huge congratulations and well done for helping to pass that law and I'm sure your sister would be so proud of you thank you I hope so yeah she gives me a lot of hope and a lot of courage. Thank you so much. This has been amazing. We'll leave all of your links in the show notes that people know how to follow you and support you. But honestly, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for coming to speak to us. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. Thank you. Should I delete that is part of the ACAS creator network.