 |
Select Language:     |
I was fourteen when my mother brought out the photograph. What do you think of him?’ She said. ‘Do you think he’s nice? He’s the man you’re going to marry’
I was sat in the living room of our family home in Derby. I couldn’t have known it at the time, but that moment was to set me on a course which would eventually culminate in my life’s work: a project for women caught up in the UK’s cultural cross-fire - a project that came to be known as Karma Nirvana, simply meaning ‘Peace’ and ‘Enlightenment’.
Guided by my own experiences, Karma Nirvana grew out of a community project to become the brave champion of women and men who are victims of forced marriage and honour-based violence. Many of these victims cannot speak up for themselves. Rendered voiceless by cultural and language barriers, they are the men and women society forgot. The secret stain on the conscience of a nation which otherwise prides itself on much-lauded values of liberty, equality and opportunity for all.
Robina was one of these women. She stayed in a violent and unhappy marriage out of duty and fear. Her self-defeating commitment to her family’s ‘honour’ or ‘izzat’ came before everything else - even her happiness and her right to live.
Robina – my beautiful sister – could not go on being abused. She set fire to herself, died and became another statistic: a member of that unseen, unheard and voiceless group of women who lose their lives every year to the scandal of honour-based abuse. Robina’s beautiful smile, so vivid and memorable in the photo which lay on top her casket, wiped out forever. Gone.
It is for women like her that I dedicate my life to making sure that the scandal of forced marriage and honour-based violence is brought out in the open. These perverse attitudes have no place in the UK or the 21st century.
I am immensely proud of our team at Karma Nirvana and all that we’ve achieved together over the years. I ask you to join us, support us and tell your family and friends who we are and what we do.
I also hope you will pause, for one moment, and consider how different your life would be today if, like my sister, you were born into one of those families in the UK that values early marriage and domestic obedience as the only valid routes to an honourable existence.
Honour-based abuse is deeply entrenched in family systems and communities. Sadly, we cannot wish this issue away. We need concrete commitments from politicians and legislators to drive it out.
And we need you to help us do this. So take a look around our site. And please - start speaking out today.
Jasvinder Sanghera,
Founder & CEO of Karma Nirvana