He struck his wife and threw tins of cat food at her
The Guardian reports on an arranged marriage that turned out to be enslavement.
A man who treated his wife as a slave and subjected her to an existence of “violence, intimidation, aggression and misery” has been jailed following a pioneering trial which saw him become the first Briton convicted of forcing their spouse into domestic servitude.
Prosecutors and police said they hoped the case of Safraz Ahmed, a 34-year-old mechanic from south London who abused, demeaned and taunted Sumara Iram over a two-year period, could see more potential victims come forward.
Ahmed subjected Iram to “physical and mental torture” after she came to the UK from Pakistan in late 2012 for an arranged marriage into which she entered willingly and with initially high hopes, Woolwich crown court was told.
He struck his wife, threw tins of cat food at her, sent streams of abusive and demeaning text messages, and once told her to jump in front of a vehicle or into a river, the judge, Christopher Hehir, was told.
Iram says she wasn’t allowed to leave the house alone or to make friends.
I cooked, I cleaned, I washed, I ironed, looked after other people’s children and when things were not to the liking of the family I was punished by beatings. I felt that there was only one purpose of my life and that was to serve this family.
Of course that’s always been what many people have understood marriage to mean.
Ahmed admitted enforced domestic servitude, for which he was jailed for two years, and assault causing actual bodily harm for breaking her nose, for which he received an eight-month term. The sentences will run concurrently, meaning he could be free within 12 months, less than half the time that Iram lived under his control.
And no broken nose.
Ahmed had once hit his wife for, as he viewed it, failing to tend properly to his sister, the court heard. If the family told her to “stand on one leg” she should do it without question, she said.
Iram came to police attention in February 2014 after neighbours saw her outside the family home in just a dress and flip-flops, before her husband dragged her back inside by her hair.
Officers realised she had a broken nose and black eye and arrested Ahmed, but they released him the next day when Iram signed a document asking for him to be freed, saying she was not under pressure.
Following the conviction police accepted they could have removed Iram then, sparing her another 18 months with her husband.
Not to mention her husband’s family, who must have helped him keep her prisoner.
Polly Harrar, the founder of the Sharan Project, which helps victims of forced marriages from south Asian communites, said the conviction suggested there were large numbers of victims living similarly restricted lives in the UK.
“This case will open the door to more prosecutions,” she said. “This woman was restricted in terms of going outside the home. She was brought here to be a slave in effect. This is just the tip of an iceberg. We have dealt with many similar cases. This case is really good for raising awareness of the problem.”
Up to a point. I wonder if Iram is worried about retribution when he gets out in a year.
H/t Barry Duke
That’s a lot more lenient than what he’d get in Oregon. The broken nose alone could be worth 5 years.
An eye for an eye, a nose for ??
Anyway, it’s kind of fitting he would throw gender-specific pet food at his wife. Better might have been bird-seed? But that wouldn’t have broken many bones, would it.
Golden cage innit.
“I wonder if Iram is worried about retribution when he gets out in a year.”
If I read the report correctly she has divorced him and left the family home. I think she would be able to get a restraining order preventing him from going anywhere near her.
It has been the better part of half a century since I was a little boy listening in disbelief as a police officer stood at our front door in front of the smirking bastard who I never refer to by his parental title, and my mother, her eye already swelling and with blood pouring from a split lip courtesy of the beating that was interrupted by said officer’s knocking (a neighbour had phoned them, concerned by the noise), and, after confirming they were married, said that the police had no powers to intervene in domestic disputes.
Back then, a wife vowed to obey and her husband was well within his rights to discipline her. That was 20th Century Britain for you. So, while two years may be nothing in Oregon, it’s infinitely better than the justice my mother got. Still nowhere near long enough though.
I do wonder how long it will be before the cultural relativists crawl out of the woodwork to tell us that we mustn’t judge people of other cultures by our own standards? I love living in multicultural Britain but the relativists can stick it where the sun don’t shine……sideways!
David Evans @ #3, sadly, and as has been proven too many times, a restraining order is only effective when obeyed. It offers no protection against a determined ex or his family looking to restore honour.
Golly, David Evans – restraining orders don’t prevent anything. Given the history here, I think there’s zero chance it will prevent Ahmed from retaliating against Iram if he wants to. My “I wonder if Iram is worried” was mostly ironic; I think she’s bound to be worried.
Restraining orders are entirely dependent on the psychology of the abuser. This happened in the last week:
http://www.australianetworknews.com/hornsby-stabbing-man-charged-with-brutal-murder-no-bail-appeal-made/
The report I read, via The Freethinker, indicated that Iram was ‘married’ for the express purpose of being a house slave for her ‘husband’s’ family. She was exploited and abused by her female in-laws just as she was by her owner.
And, she had a Master’s Degree in ‘Islamic Studies,’ so she SHOULD have been able to explain why they weren’t being ‘real’ Muslims.
Did the story mention how old she was? I didn’t see it …
Yes. 19 when they married, late 20s when she joined him in the UK, if I remember correctly.