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Coronavirus puts girls from Hong Kong, Britain’s ethnic minorities at greater risk of forced marriage Photo: AFP
The coronavirus pandemic is putting girls from ethnic minorities in Hong Kong and Britain at greater risk of being forced into marriage. This story is part of a series on women s issues in China and Asia to coincide with International Women s Day.
Jani , a 17-year-old Briton of Bangladeshi descent living in the United Kingdom, has spent the past year in constant dread. I fear that I will be taken abroad and never let back. (And that) I will be raped, she said.
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One of the big questions is the relationships between the three women and the captors. as you said, michael, the british woman, 30 years old, we believe from the freedom charity which orchestrated their release, may even have been born in captivity. apparently police say she wasn t related to the other two prisoners. could it be she ses the daughter of these two cap tors? these are all unexplained questions. this is what the police did have to say about the relations between them all. that really is what i m investigating at the moment, what the relationships between these people are. when i say relationships, i m both looking at the relationships as in bee logical and i m also looking at relationships how they interacted. clearly, the allegations are that people were being controlled subject of oh coercion, violence. and as you re aware, this goes back at least three decades. so there s a lot for us to
Women finally found courage to break free from their captors after watching a bbc documentary on forced marriages. featuring the freedom charity. one woman called a charity help line shortly after the report aired. i think one of the key things is gaining trust and being gentle and soft in order not to overwhelm them with too much, too many questions. but ensuring they were happy to disclose information in a controlled and positive way. reporter: the case is eerily similar to the cast of ariel castro who kept three women in his house for ten years in cleveland under neighbor s host noses. i think you would describe it as an ordinary house in an ordinary street. it wouldn t raise concerns of neighbors or anyone else. they had rooms they could use but were very restrictive on what they could do.
Came into the freedom charity. they basically told us they were being held and they needed support to come out of a very difficult situation. as a charity, we take every call very seriously. we have a 24/7 help line which they contacted. from that moment onward, it was very sensitive negotiations in order to help them in escaping. hearing from the detective they re highly traumatized, no shock there, but what can you tell me about the women? what can you tell me about these 30 years in captivity? we don t have that many details except for what we heard from the police and the charity. again, that phrase controlled freedom. it s not clear exactly how they were held against their will, but according to the charity that negotiated their way out, they say they were extremely terrified of the couple that was arrested earlier this morning, and this couple sort of apparently were kind of like the head of the family there.