Hansard

This will be my final speech as an MSP. I have decided to set myself a challenge. Instead of having the speech written out in front of me in 16-point bold, with double spacing, I have a few notes. I am beginning to regret that, because I am not sure in what order the notes are supposed to go, but I will do my best. Presiding Officer, I am glad that you said that we have a bit of extra time. When I told Bill Kidd that I was challenging myself, he said that the challenge would be to shut me up.

It is less a challenge than a pleasure to speak on the bill, for three reasons. First, it allows me to reiterate the point that I made when I last spoke on the bill, which is that forced marriage bears no relation to arranged marriage. All of us must continue to make that point. Somebody recently said to me that I should stop talking about the two in the same breath, so that people would not associate them, but it is not as easy as that. People believe that they are one and the same thing. Even an MSP colleague asked me this morning, “Are you speaking in the arranged marriage debate?” Just after that, he said, “No—I couldn’t have said that; I must have said ‘forced marriage’.” There is something in people’s minds—they see the two as one and the same thing, and we have to keep making the point.

It is not just we who need to be educated. The Law Society of Scotland made a good point when it wrote to us all yesterday saying that the legal framework is very helpful and that it supports it. As Johann Lamont said, we have to educate children and let them know that they do not have to put up with forced marriage. We have to educate the whole of Scotland, and we have to keep doing it.

The second reason is that the debate allows me to pay tribute to the constituent of mine about whom I spoke at stage 1, whom I have called Nina. She came to me with a housing problem. She had been housed on a main road in Glasgow. We might not think that that would be a problem, but this young woman has been terrified that her family will find her. Every time a car door has shut—which can be heard pretty often on a main road—she has thought that they might be coming to get her.

No wonder Nina was frightened. She had escaped a flight to a forced marriage at the age of 15. When her parents caught up with her, they put her in a room for a week. They starved her, giving her nothing to eat for a week—they gave her only water. This is the part that really shocked me: her teachers came round and, while they were downstairs, her mother poured a sugar solution down her throat so that she could at least look healthy and pretend that she had just been a little bit unwell.

Not everyone has the guts that my constituent Nina has. She escaped, and she has built a life for herself. She works full time—she does not earn very much, but she works really hard. She always goes to her work, as well as looking after her child. I pay tribute to her.

Because not everyone has the guts that Nina has, it is of crucial importance to have provision in the bill for local authorities and the Lord Advocate to apply on behalf of a victim for a forced marriage protection order.

What happened to Nina was not cultural; it was abuse. Someone once said:

“Forced marriages are, and always will be, an abuse of human rights and human dignity carried out by cowards who hide behind the veil of honour, shame and family pride.”

Those were the words of the late Bashir Ahmad, who is the reason I am here today. He is the reason I have been here for the past two years. It was a terrible reason, but it has been an honour to attempt to follow in his footsteps. Bashir has had a great influence on my time here. Any time that I have read something about myself that bears no relation to the truth, or that I have felt frustrated with the political process—as we all do from time to time—I always try to think of what Bashir would have said. He always said that everyone had their reasons for the way in which they behaved, and that there was good in everyone. I have always tried to believe that, too—although it does not always work.

Bashir Ahmad is not just the reason why I am here today; he is one of the reasons why the bill is before us. He was passionate in his support of victims of forced marriage, and he was determined not to allow any community, race or religion to be stigmatised by it. Had the bill before us today not been introduced, he would, he said, have introduced a member’s bill. I will end with his words:

“I am pleased that the Scottish Government and indeed all political parties in Scotland are recognising the need to act against this horrific crime. Today in the Scottish Parliament we will be debating the way forward in tackling forced marriages.”

If the late Bashir Ahmad MSP is watching now, I am sure that he will be so proud to know that today, the final day of the Scottish parliamentary session in which he became the first Muslim MSP, we are not just debating the way forward; we are finally passing laws that will protect the victims that he was so passionate about.

09:49