I’ve often said that the first and most often victims of Islam are other Muslims. It’s Muslim women who are the victims of Islamic misogyny and heterodox Muslims including reformers and ex Muslims who face violence often lethal violence from other more orthodox Muslims.

One aspect of the way that Muslim women are victimised by Muslim men and by Islam is the issue of forced marriage something that is going on in the UK at a shocking level. Forced marriage is often a hidden problem but some brave and forthright people are speaking out against this problem.

One of those speaking out about the problem of forced marriage is the writer Shazia Hobbs the author of the novel ‘The Goris Daughter’. In the video below Ms Hobbs speaks to the internet video channel ‘Love Talk’ about her experience of forced marriage, a marriage that shockingly happened in the United Kingdom.

Here’s the video of Ms Hobbs speaking about her appalling experience of being forced into a loveless marriage to a Pakistani man whose primary desire was to acquire a British passport. Ms Hobb’s section starts at around 15mins into this video.

The rest of the video is an insight into ‘honour’ violence and the extreme levels of control exerted on women by some minority communities, especially Islamic communities. The other speakers in the video speak of the pressure to uphold the family name that is put on women in communities that are dominated by a culture of misogyny. Some of the rest of this video is well worth seeing not just for the excellent Ms Hobbs but also for other speakers who inform us of the large scale of ‘honour’ violence and forced marriage that is going on.