Below is a news report from German television about the forced marriages and domestic violence that are a normal part of the parallel Turkish society in Neuköln. Many thanks to Hans Erling Jensen for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitles:
A full transcript is below the jump:
| 00:08 | Turkish woman: Many (Turks) who live here think it’s ok… | |
| 00:12 | they find it normal, that a girl actually marries against her will. | |
| 00:16 | …and has sex against her will for the rest of her life! | |
| 00:20 | …every time it was like having a knife in my heart… | |
| 00:24 | when he touched me or was close to me! | |
| 00:28 | But it shall come to an end…she wants a divorce and she breaks another taboo… | |
| 00:32 | straightaway by openly telling her story to our camera! | |
| 00:37 | I’ve already lost one sister to this violence, this concept of forced marriage; she was forced to marry, | |
| 00:41 | marry against her will… like so many other girls…it was by no means a single case. | |
| 00:45 | …I want to help other girls avoid the same fate! | |
| 00:49 | Three women in Neuköln, three apparently modern and well integrated immigrant women. | |
| 00:53 | They dont wear veils or other traditional garments | |
| 00:57 | No outsider can tell that they are nevertheless still unwilling parts | |
| 01:01 | of the archaic Turkish parallel society. | |
| 01:05 | The oldest, Elif, is 38 years old. | |
| 01:09 | In 1989, aged 17, she was forced to marry a man whom she didn’t love | |
| 01:13 | She is still hiding from him. | |
| 01:17 | Her youngest sister, Nazan, aged 22, works as a child care worker. | |
| 01:21 | In 2002, when she was 14 years old, she attempted suicide to avoid… | |
| 01:25 | a forthcoming forced marriage. | |
| 01:29 | The second sister succeeded (in committing suicide) | |
| 01:33 | Mevlüda died at only 17 years of age. She killed herself in 1991 | |
| 01:37 | as a last resort to avoid a forced marriage. | |
| 01:41 | And even the next generation (of Turkish girls), who are born here | |
| 01:45 | (in Germany), are to be bartered away as if they where live stock. | |
| 01:49 | Elif’s daughter, Kader, aged 19, is attending high school. | |
| 01:53 | Her father wishes to give her away in marriage to a cousin, whom she doesn’t know. | |
| 01:57 | But her mother, Elif, has had enough of it. She left her husband, | |
| 02:01 | who in 2010 treated his own daughter as a slave. | |
| 02:06 | The girls in fact suffer more (under archaic traditions) here in Germany | |
| 02:10 | than in Turkey itself. The people their are… | |
| 02:14 | actually far more modern-minded, compared to the parents who came here 30-40 years ago, | |
| 02:18 | who seem to be stuck in an obsolete mindset. | |
| 02:22 | That’s why she’s afraid — because it’s not only the old who do not appreciate | |
| 02:26 | women with a will of their own. | |
| 02:30 | Wolla…how should I put it…it’s wicked; Sluts may be a harsh expression, but it’s no good! | |
| 02:38 | When the right one has been found (by the parents) the woman must obey. | |
| 02:40 | I don’t think that’s wrong, | |
| 02:42 | I find it to be okay! | |
| 02:46 | That’s how we go about it…simply our culture! | |
| 02:50 | Time and again she wants to end our feature with her. | |
| 02:54 | She is, as a woman in the 21st century, in reality without rights | |
| 02:58 | in the middle of Berlin, and hence in real danger, just because | |
| 03:02 | she wishes to tell us how her life really is and was. | |
| 03:06 | Only when we leave Neuköln and drive to a suburb can she speak freely. | |
| 03:10 | When she was 11 it was arranged she should later marry her cousin | |
| 03:14 | and she was sent away to her uncle in Turkey. | |
| 03:18 | He (the uncle) wanted me to marry him (the cousin) when I was only 13 | |
| 03:22 | I was also heavily mistreated. Not only physically… | |
| 03:26 | but mentally as well…he was calling me names and so on…in the end… | |
| 03:30 | I was mentally completely devastated | |
| 03:34 | And I was heavily beaten up…among other things I sustained serious injuries to my back. | |
| 03:39 | The Berlin teenager struggles for six years. Then she can no longer stand the pressure. | |
| 03:47 | All my relatives put pressure on me — “if you dont marry as planned, | |
| 03:51 | this or that person will end up getting killed” – you know, references to honor killings. | |
| 03:55 | “you are to blame for all the tragedies that will follow, if you dont marry etc., etc.!” | |
| 03:59 | At the end I told my father: Okay then, I’ll do as you want | |
| 04:01 | to end all this misery. | |
| 04:05 | Thus began her martyrdom — a loveless marriage as the wife of a cousin whom she hates. | |
| 04:09 | Sex is experienced solely as rape. | |
| 04:14 | Every time it was like having a knife in my heart…when he touched me or was close to me! | |
| 04:17 | It was dreadful. | |
| 04:22 | Elif laughs even when tears where more fitting. She wants to be strong. | |
| 04:25 | She secretly postponed pregnancy for seven months. But then it happened. | |
| 04:33 | I tried to provoke an abortion by eating a lot of pills. I didn’t want a child with | |
| 04:37 | a man whom I didn’t love…the child should not … | |
| 04:41 | be born into the world under such circumstances. I didn’t know what would happen | |
| 04:45 | to me and the child didn’t deserve to come to a place without love. | |
| 04:53 | The birth of her daughter, Kader, didn’t change the marriage…it only became worse. | |
| 04:58 | He was violent…grabbed knives…tried to…well even towards the child… | |
| 05:01 | I have a recording where the child is terrified of her father | |
| 05:05 | “my dad hits me all the time!…he always had his belt readily at hand” | |
| 05:09 | he frightened us with his violence…back then I could do nothing | |
| 05:13 | I was always in fear of doing something wrong. | |
| 05:17 | he threatened us with knives…I (often) stood in a corner with my child | |
| 05:21 | and waited for his rage to settle! | |
| 05:29 | Elif’s three children are not love children but they are being loved nevertheless! | |
| 05:37 | How old where you then? | |
| 05:41 | Just turned 16…! 16!…Yes, it was in the late eighties…! | |
| 05:46 | You look older…! | |
| 05:50 | Yes…I looked older than my real age from early on…I had more or less developed breasts at age 11, giving me a mature look. | |
| 05:54 | She has often explained to her oldest daughter that she was born | |
| 05:56 | of a forced marriage and that she does not. | |
| 06:00 | want her daughter to repeat that pattern. Today Elif wants to show | |
| 06:04 | the 19-year-old where she grew up and tell her what she witnessed then. | |
| 06:08 | We were seven siblings…with your aunts and uncles. | |
| 06:12 | Back then it was only a one and a half room apartment. | |
| 06:16 | it was awful. There was no bathroom and no modern heating system like nowadays. | |
| 06:20 | Instead mental pressure and habitual beatings… | |
| 06:24 | administered by the father were the order of the day. | |
| 06:28 | Beatings which eventually killed Elif’s two-year-younger sister Mevlüda. | |
| 06:32 | Well, then…I will never forget it, it was really dreadful | |
| 06:36 | you were five months old then. We shared a room. I noticed that | |
| 06:38 | Mevlüda was dead the next morning. | |
| 06:42 | While living next door to german neighbors she awoke beside | |
| 06:46 | her dead sister. The then 17-year-old had used pills to take her own life. | |
| 06:50 | So many people came to us afterwards. Many of whom we didn’t even know. | |
| 06:54 | They couldn’t believe that such a young and strong girl had passed away. | |
| 07:00 | In 1991 she could see no other way out, as she was to be (forcibly) married. | |
| 07:04 | Eleven years later, in 2002, nothing had changed in the Berlin-based family. | |
| 07:08 | The youngest daughter Nazan, then 14 years old, | |
| 07:12 | was to marry a 30-year-old during her summer vacation | |
| 07:20 | In Turkey there was this…roof…high up with a long drop down. | |
| 07:24 | I had planed to jump out from there…but they prevented it. | |
| 07:28 | Why did you think of doing that? | |
| 07:32 | Well, I simply couldn’t stand the thought of it all. | |
| 07:36 | By now Nazan has freed herself form the grip… | |
| 07:40 | and lives in a shared flat. Her big sister Elif | |
| 07:44 | often seeks refuge there when her former husband forces his way into her apartment. | |
| 07:52 | On behalf of my children I wish | |
| 07:56 | my former husband would show more respect and tolerance, | |
| 08:00 | that he would understand how difficult a time we had coping with him for so many years… | |
| 08:04 | that he at least would leave me alone and not threaten me all the time… | |
| 08:09 | .I wish he would accept and realize that we live in separate apartments. | |
| 08:13 | that would the first step…it’s a great achievement actually… | |
| 08:17 | (to be able to think so at all)…four years ago I would never have imagined | |
| 08:19 | that I could take such steps. | |
| 08:23 | If she (Elif) can find an affordable apartment which her ex-husband cannot enter, | |
| 08:27 | the women of the Kaya family could actually stand a chance… | |
| 08:31 | of arriving in Germany in the year 2010 after 30 years of purely superficial integration. |
Being forced into marriage is the equivalent of rape.
Being forced to marry a cousin is the equivalent of incestuous rape.
Islam and Genetic Damage
There are good reasons why such things are taboo in any civilized part of the world.
Those transcripts are really helpful. Thank you.