And now it’s forced, under age marriages!
The community is understandably livid at the continuing misrepresentation of ethnic communities in New Zealand’s mainstream media.
What began with Paul Henry’s comments about Governor General Sir Anand Satyanand’s “non-New Zealander” appearance continued with the deliberate mispronunciation of Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s last name and then likening it to all Indians – which incidentally was under-reported during the brouhaha that raged for weeks, finally culminating in the resignation of Mr Henry.
More recently, a straightforward case of suspected homicide in the Waikato was mischievously interpreted as an “honour killing” by a section of the mainstream media to which injudicious comments from so-called “leaders” and “experts” of the Indian community added fuel by giving a regional and casteist colour to the whole episode.
This led some commentators to make extreme comments on migrants as a whole and some of the articles that were published in Indian Weekender and the online edition continue to attract comments from all over the world even weeks after these first reports appeared.
The latest in this unfortunate chain of stories is the report that the forced marriage of under age girls is rampant in the Sikh and Muslim communities in New Zealand. The story quotes a non-government organisation called Shakti, which has been around since 1995 and is active in the realm of women’s welfare, running four refuges for migrant women in Auckland, Tauranga and Christchurch, among its other activities.
Shakti has made submissions to the government on its experience and findings in their sphere of work – the many domestic issues that migrant women face in New Zealand.
A Shakti spokesperson has been quoted in the story as saying that there are as many as 50 cases of forced and under age marriages taking place every year in New Zealand – and that too predominantly in the Sikh and Muslim communities.
Shakti apparently believes that these marriages are solemnized in places of worship and even clandestinely in homes by officiating priests. Community leaders vehemently refute this saying if it was as rampant as it is made out to be, there would have been someone in the community who would have heard about it.
There surely are reformists and whistleblowers in every community. If indeed it was so rampant and a rising trend over the years, it is indeed surprising that so many respected community leaders of unimpeachable credentials pledge that they have never ever heard about such cases, as seen from the accompanying article in this issue.
If Shakti has the evidence, it should discuss this with the communities first rather than go to a media, which to begin with is apathetic to migrant issues, constantly looking to connect vague, often non-existent dots to paint a picture that fits a long existing stereotype. Senior mainstream journalists admit that there is a trend in certain newsrooms to sensationalise anything that sounds out of the ordinary for the so-called “Middle New Zealander”.
As University of Auckland academic Ruth DeSouza pointed out in a previous Indian Weekender issue and our online social networking page – and as NZICA President Paul Singh Bains says in this issue, why are infererences sought to be drawn from cultural references only insofar as migrant stories are concerned. “If a New Zealand European was reported involved in such activity would the journalist blame the Church group as well?” Mr Bains asks pertinently.
In dragging entire communities wantonly especially when the cases reported are far from a discernible trend are, if at all, isolated, the mainstream media does a disservice to the real problem of such violence which is bound to exist in a wide swathe of ethnicities around the world – including the western world.
By naming a specific community an impression is created that such occurences are restricted to those communities and do not happen elsewhere. This is a fallacious assumption – but it gains ground when cultures and ethnicities are deliberately sought to be associated with certain behavioural traits.
Invariably there is a tendency to “ghettoise” such reportage by tarnishing an entire community or ethnic or religious group with the same brush. It is not only unfair but grossly insensitive and unprofessional.
What is unfortunate is that members of ethnic communities and overzealous activists and organisations are often responsible for further complicating the issue by engaging with the media with half-baked opinions, statistics and analyses.
The community is understandably livid at the continuing misrepresentation of ethnic communities in New Zealand’s mainstream media.
What began with Paul Henry’s comments about Governor General Sir Anand Satyanand’s “non-New Zealander” appearance continued with the deliberate mispronunciation of...
The community is understandably livid at the continuing misrepresentation of ethnic communities in New Zealand’s mainstream media.
What began with Paul Henry’s comments about Governor General Sir Anand Satyanand’s “non-New Zealander” appearance continued with the deliberate mispronunciation of Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s last name and then likening it to all Indians – which incidentally was under-reported during the brouhaha that raged for weeks, finally culminating in the resignation of Mr Henry.
More recently, a straightforward case of suspected homicide in the Waikato was mischievously interpreted as an “honour killing” by a section of the mainstream media to which injudicious comments from so-called “leaders” and “experts” of the Indian community added fuel by giving a regional and casteist colour to the whole episode.
This led some commentators to make extreme comments on migrants as a whole and some of the articles that were published in Indian Weekender and the online edition continue to attract comments from all over the world even weeks after these first reports appeared.
The latest in this unfortunate chain of stories is the report that the forced marriage of under age girls is rampant in the Sikh and Muslim communities in New Zealand. The story quotes a non-government organisation called Shakti, which has been around since 1995 and is active in the realm of women’s welfare, running four refuges for migrant women in Auckland, Tauranga and Christchurch, among its other activities.
Shakti has made submissions to the government on its experience and findings in their sphere of work – the many domestic issues that migrant women face in New Zealand.
A Shakti spokesperson has been quoted in the story as saying that there are as many as 50 cases of forced and under age marriages taking place every year in New Zealand – and that too predominantly in the Sikh and Muslim communities.
Shakti apparently believes that these marriages are solemnized in places of worship and even clandestinely in homes by officiating priests. Community leaders vehemently refute this saying if it was as rampant as it is made out to be, there would have been someone in the community who would have heard about it.
There surely are reformists and whistleblowers in every community. If indeed it was so rampant and a rising trend over the years, it is indeed surprising that so many respected community leaders of unimpeachable credentials pledge that they have never ever heard about such cases, as seen from the accompanying article in this issue.
If Shakti has the evidence, it should discuss this with the communities first rather than go to a media, which to begin with is apathetic to migrant issues, constantly looking to connect vague, often non-existent dots to paint a picture that fits a long existing stereotype. Senior mainstream journalists admit that there is a trend in certain newsrooms to sensationalise anything that sounds out of the ordinary for the so-called “Middle New Zealander”.
As University of Auckland academic Ruth DeSouza pointed out in a previous Indian Weekender issue and our online social networking page – and as NZICA President Paul Singh Bains says in this issue, why are infererences sought to be drawn from cultural references only insofar as migrant stories are concerned. “If a New Zealand European was reported involved in such activity would the journalist blame the Church group as well?” Mr Bains asks pertinently.
In dragging entire communities wantonly especially when the cases reported are far from a discernible trend are, if at all, isolated, the mainstream media does a disservice to the real problem of such violence which is bound to exist in a wide swathe of ethnicities around the world – including the western world.
By naming a specific community an impression is created that such occurences are restricted to those communities and do not happen elsewhere. This is a fallacious assumption – but it gains ground when cultures and ethnicities are deliberately sought to be associated with certain behavioural traits.
Invariably there is a tendency to “ghettoise” such reportage by tarnishing an entire community or ethnic or religious group with the same brush. It is not only unfair but grossly insensitive and unprofessional.
What is unfortunate is that members of ethnic communities and overzealous activists and organisations are often responsible for further complicating the issue by engaging with the media with half-baked opinions, statistics and analyses.
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