The Privilege To Love
Nyla Khan, our CEO, has written about her experience as a FM victim in her book ‘The Privilege To Love’.
We asked her why she chose ‘The Privilege To Love’ as her title. She told us:
“As a forced marriage survivor and a woman who comes from a South-Asian community and religion, falling in love is a privilege I simply did not have.
‘I know that some of us don't even think about falling in love or having the conscious autonomy to pick a romantic partner in the context of privilege. For most, it is given. A choice. A basic freedom.
My marriage was engineered for me from a young age. And to make matters worse, the marriage was with my direct cousin, someone whom with I shared actual DNA. As a consequence of this, I was robbed of the freedom to fall in love and the luxury of marrying someone in the context of an organic and developing relationship.”
‘There are millions of women who do not have this privilege. Can you imagine not being able to date? To experience heartache? To fall in love and get married out of free will rather than coercion?
‘These things as well as my own lived experience inspired me to write ‘The Privilege To Love: An Escape From Forced Marriage’
Read an excerpt of Nyla’s story here.
Women in every culture feel the pressure to get married and have children by a certain age, especially in more traditional households. Beyond work goals, it remains the barometer of achievement, both for the woman as much as for her family. Around me, women my age are looking for a partner, dreaming of white wedding dresses, of walking down the aisle on their father’s arm, he beams with pride and mother sheds a tear while she is given away to her “The One.” It is a sweeping generalisation, of course, but it remains a driving force for women in their late twenties and thirties. I know that some of us do not even think about falling in love or having the conscious autonomy to pick a romantic partner in the context of privilege. For most, it is a given, a choice - a basic freedom. It is not my barometer of success. Don’t get me wrong, I wish them every joy and happiness, I hope they have a real choice in who they marry.
There are millions of women who do not have this privilege. Can you imagine not being able to date? To experience heartache? To fall in love and get married out of free will rather than coercion? These are all valuable life-affirming experiences to have. To me, these are all hard-fought personal freedoms. I know, you are going to tell me that women in Scotland have all these freedoms so what do I, Nyla, know about fighting for them?
My marriage was engineered for me from an early age. To make matters worse, the marriage was with my direct cousin, someone with whom I shared actual DNA. Because of this, the freedom to fall in love and the luxury of marrying someone in the context of an organic and developing relationship, was taken away from me.
I would like to tell you that story now, the story of a Scottish girl who was sent away at the age of seventeen for a forced marriage to her cousin. It is my story.
