A HIGH Court judge in Belfast has imposed protection orders regarding two girls he held to be at risk of being sent from Northern Ireland for forced marriages in Pakistan.
Mr Justice Stephens made his ruling on behalf of the children, aged 12 and 14, after the authorities claimed false documents were produced as part of a planned deception by their parents.
An unnamed trust alleged the excuse of sending the girls for several years’ education in Pakistan as a pretext for the real motive.
The judge ended wardship orders previously granted for the children, and decided that a forced marriage protection order should be issued.
He said: “I find as a fact that there is a present real and substantial risk that [the girls] will be forced by their parents to marry against their wishes.” The children are described as being British, of Pakistani descent, and brought up as Muslims.
Mr Justice Stephens, in a judgment which has just been made public, set out how the trust claimed no arrangements had been made for their education.
It was alleged, partly based on previous forced marriages of the girls’ two brothers in 2005, that once in Pakistan they were to be isolated, attended to and prepared for the same outcome.
The trust also contended the parents either chose to ignore the distinction between a forced and an arranged marriage, or have no insight into emotional and physical pressures previously applied.
Wardship orders put in place to protect the girls in 2007 gave control for their care to the trust, the judge noted.
In his ruling, he set out how many members of the extended family live in Pakistan.
The father was said to suffer from a serious illness. The mother gave evidence of her desire to bring up all of her children in accordance with proper ethical standards. She and her family have endured racial hostility in the area in which they live, Mr Justice Stephens said.
He found the real reason the girls were to be sent to Pakistan in 2007 was “so that they could learn ‘respect’ as an overarching filial duty, which I hold in the context of this family means obedience overriding their full and free choice”. The judge added: “Thereafter that it was the intention of the parents that they would be forced to marry in Pakistan.”
He said that if the primary purpose of the girls being sent to Pakistan was for education, the mother would have made inquiries and arranged with a school “so that at the very least the school could interview” them. She would, for instance, have sent over school reports, he added.
“The concept that this was all left to be arranged when [the girls] arrived in Pakistan is completely inconsistent with the mother’s emphasis on education and advancement.”
Mr Justice Stephens said: “However, if [the girls] did go there for a ‘holiday’ I consider that also would be a pretext . . .
“I consider that a forced marriage protection order, a draft of which has been submitted to me, is a proportionate response.”