Category: women’s issues

Italy tackles the Muslim polygamy problem—will we be next?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Thanks to some very brave Muslim women, Italy is now beginning to face up to the problem of polygamy among Muslim immigrants.    Everytime I see an article like this one in the Los Angeles Times which has this lead-in: 

A boom in the illegal marriages is a byproduct of voluminous immigration by Muslims. Authorities largely ignore the unions, leaving the women in a murky world with no recourse when things go wrong.

I am reminded that we are seeing the advance warnings for us— the United States.  Already there are stories of such abuses of women among refugee communities here.  See our previous posts on polygamy.

Also, I’ll bet some of those so-called family members, sisters(?), that have been found to not be related to the applicant through DNA testing are actually extra wives (or would-be wives) the refugee wants to bring to the US through the family reunification program.

Muslim immigrants and homeschooling

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’m cleaning out my in-box containing links to all sorts of articles I missed over many previous months.  It takes a while because I’m finding all sorts of things I missed and am now reading!   Sorry to any reader who wrote to us and didn’t get a response—my in-box is a mess! 

Here is a blog report from way back in June that distracted me from my cleaning.  Homeschooling has been a part of our family for many years, so I especially found this enlightening and had been wondering just when Muslim immigrants and refugees would find the home schooling option in America.  I guess they have.

Referring to a New York Times article on Muslim homeschooling, blogger Martin Gaither comments:

In his article, MacFarquhar focuses mostly on Muslim immigrants in Lodi, California. The area is home to about 2,500 Muslims, 80 percent of whom are “interrelated” Pakistani villagers trying to “recreate the conservative social atmosphere back home.” One way of doing this is to shield their girls from American culture, especially once they hit puberty. Of the 90 South Asian girls in the district, 38 are homeschooled (in contrast to only 7 of the 107 boys).

MacFarquhar interviews two of the homeschooled girls and finds that they are being kept home so they will be able to “cook and clean” for their “male relatives” and also to avoid being shunned by others in the community. One of the students remarked, “Some men don’t like it when you wear American clothes – they don’t think it’s a good thing for girls.” Eventually, the girls are “married off, often to cousins brought in from their families’ old villages.”

Read the whole post here.  He goes on to pose the question about Muslim home schooling becoming a way to avoid assimilation but also to raise jihadis.

I’m wondering, where did all the Pakistanis come from?   I just checked the databases and the Refugee Resettlement Program has only admitted less than 100 Pakistanis in recent years.  I would like to know through which immigration program they are entering the US.

Catholic Charities off the hook in abortion case

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We told you previously about how a Catholic Charities employee in Virginia helped an immigrant girl get an abortion.  Technically the underage girl was in the legal charge of the Office of Refugee Resettlement because the whereabouts of her parents is unknown. 

Local Catholic Charities offices that help with refugee resettlement and who take care of minors like this Guatemalan girl are under the umbrella of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, one of the 10 major volags contracted by the federal government to do this type of work.

The story is being widely covered but here is an update this morning from a Catholic publication:

RICHMOND, Virginia, July 9, 2008 The Attorney for the Commonwealth of Virginia says he will investigate, but has no intentions of prosecuting, Commonwealth Catholic Charities of Richmond (CCR) for their involvement in procuring an illegal abortion for a 16-year-old Guatemalan girl in their care.

Only the CCR staffer who forged the consent form for the girl’s abortion will be the subject of Commonwealth Attorney Michael N. Herring’s investigation. The staffer would face a Class 3 misdemeanor punishable by a $500 fine for signing a consent form without authority to do so under Virginia law.

“That’s the only possible criminal angle,” Herring told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “I’m not investigating Catholic Charities. I’m looking into the execution of the consent form.”

Here is our original story from last month.

British author campaigning against Female Genital Mutilation

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Blulitespecial sent me this link within moments of my nice chat over at this post written about honor kilIings in early June.   The commenters there asked me not to use the word “heathen” in connection with anything to do with Muslims because it offended our readers Scandinavian religious heritage.  LOL!  I’ll honor their wishes and describe FGM as savagery and not heathen behavior.

Also, check out this post where we had a comment (no.7) earlier today on FGM.   The subject is obviously a hot one.

Now, back to the British author’s campaign.   Read the whole article about how Ruth Rendell has worked the subject of mutilation of a little girl into a novel soon to be published entitled, “Not in the Flesh.”    Rendell discusses how difficult it is to stop the practice in the UK because it is so secretive.  

Secretive, yes, but here is what I think is the real reason—no one wants to offend Muslim refugees and immigrants by talking about it.  The article describes the practice as coming mostly with immigrants from the Horn of Africa.  There is not one mention of any connection to Islam.   Granted some who are not Muslims practice this mutilation, but the majority of the practitioners are Muslims.

This politically correct tiptoeing around FGM (and other similar abuses) for fear of offending will be the death of us.

Father kills daughter in Georgia–was it an honor killing?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Very latest update:   Judy’s post today on this story.

Latest update:  The murder suspect appears in court here.  Also, see this website called News By Us and its analysis of the coverage of this case in the Chicago Tribune.

Update:  Hot off the press at Jihad Watch!  It was an Islamic honor killing!  One commenter at Jihad Watch is calling honor killings, “daughter-slaughter.”

A Pakistani immigrant strangled his daughter in a fit of rage because she wanted to leave her arranged marriage according to this brief report today in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.   Hat tip:  Robert 

A Clayton County man faces murder charges in the strangling death of his 25-year-old daughter early Sunday over her desire to end an arranged marriage.

Chaudhry Rashad, 54, apparently got mad during an argument in which the victim, Sandela Kanwal, told him she wanted out of the marriage, Clayton police officer Timothy Owens said.

Authorities were called to their Utah Drive home in Jonesboro just after 3 a.m. Sunday. Kanwal lived with her father when she was not with her husband, who is in Chicago, Owens said. She hadn’t seen the husband in three months, he said.

Both Rashad and Kanwal are of Pakistani descent.

You can bet there is more to this story, but I doubt we will ever hear it.

We have written previously on the subject of forced marriage and honor killings practiced by some adherents to Islam in our women’s issues category.

A blog that covers the abuses of women in the Muslim culture, Women against Shariah, has written 15 posts on forced marriage here, and 31 on honor killings here.