The UK must ban child marriage or it will undermine its commitment to ending violence against women and girls

The UK must ban child marriage or it will undermine its commitment to ending violence against women and girls

By Vareen Ismail   At the age of 16, Payzee Mahmod should have been like other teenagers in London: studying for her exams, and deciding if she wanted to go on to university. Instead, her conservative, Kurdish Muslim family married her off to a man who was “so old he was losing his hair”.   On the wedding night, she was trapped in a hotel room with her husband, a stranger nearly twice her age who started to make violent sexual advances. She locked herself in the bathroom, called her…

Murdered By My Father: A Review

Murdered By My Father: A Review

By Iram Ramzan   “Someone’s always watching. Trust me.”   These are the words uttered by college student Salma in the BBC 3 drama Murdered By My Father, as she warns her boyfriend to stay away before someone finds out that they are dating. We have all been there, have we not ladies? Most of us, from South Asian or Middle Eastern backgrounds, where the notions of honour and shame are so important, have always been — and always will be — on our guards whenever we leave the house. Because no matter…