Sakina Muhammad Jan is the first person in Australia to be jailed over its forced marriage laws.

A mother has become the first person to be jailed under Australia’s forced marriage laws, for ordering her daughter to wed a man who would later murder the 21-year-old.

Sakina Muhammad Jan, who is in her late 40s, was found guilty of coercing Ruqia Haidari to marry 26-year-old Mohammad Ali Halimi in 2019, in exchange for a small payment.

Six weeks after the nuptials, Halimi killed his new bride - a crime for which he is now serving a life sentence.

On Monday, Jan - who pleaded not guilty - was sentenced to at least a year in jail, for what a judge called the “intolerable pressure” she had placed on her daughter.

  • KevonLooney@lemm.eeEnglish
    451·
    5 months ago

    “Brown people”? There are plenty of brown people around the world who don’t practice arranged marriage. Also, it was very common in Europe prior to the Enlightenment (I may be off on the exact timing).

    It has nothing to do with racism and everything to do with human rights, as the other person said.

    • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldEnglish
      26·
      5 months ago

      As a practice, it is far more common in south and Central Asia and Africa, and is more culturally significant in those places. However, I was wrong to equate arranged marriage and forced marriage. Australian law makes that distinction, and research supports it.

      “while forced marriage is not a product of any ethnic, racial or religious affiliation, certain cultural approaches and sensitivities should be employed when identifying forced marriage… Academic literature critiques the tendency to box forced marriage as a problem within new-migrant communities” (Source)[https://fecca.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/FECCA-Literature-Review-on-Forced-Marriages.pdf]