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off ice and had the endless women‟s voice on the phone whispering their fears.
They needed to be rescued. Detective Superintendent, Tony Hutchinson from Cleveland police
appreciated Jasvinder‟s action. He knew nothing about forced marriage until he
went to a conference in London. At that event, Jasvinder was invited to attend as a speaker. Jasvinder could give a clear explanation which changed Tony‟s idea. He
saw his phone line as a local project. Tony‟s idea – like Karma Nirvana when it first started out – was small
scale and very practical. He wanted to introduce a twenty-four-hour free phone number, manned by up to twenty volunteers, which would be
dedicated to callers ringing about forced marriage or honour-based violence Sanghera 164.
Karma Nirvana had been established for a year in Derby. Day by day, Jasvinder proudly introduces herself as the worker of women‟s freedom. She
fought for women who had been the victims of forced marriage. She said that she worked for Karma Nirvana, a Derby-based organisation helping south Asian
women who had been the victims of honour-based violence and forced marriage.
2. Choosing to Work rather than Taking a PhD Degree
E arly that summer, Gordon Riches, who had been Jasvinder‟s tutor when
she was an undergraduate at Derby University, came to Karma Nirvana. He tried and persuaded Jasvinder to do a PhD on honour-based violence. As soon as she
started her PhD proposal, she knew that the work was what she really wanted to do.
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Very few of the books I found in the library contained anything relevant; there was quite a lot of feminist material which touched on the subject, but
I found it either strident or dry and nothing came close to examining why survivors survive. I began interviewing disowned women
– there was a steady stream of them approaching Karma Nirvana
– and looking for trends in their behaviour, common patterns and reactions. Sanghera 150.
When Jasvinder was on in the process of taking her PhD, she did her research and also did her actions at the same time. To make it easier, she classified
the characteristics of the survivors. I made a list of the characteristics common to women who find the
courage to flee their oppressive families of their forced marriage- the survivors. The first thing on the list was that all of them, every single one,
claimed to have been the black sheep in her family, just as I was in mine. Iwas a breech baby and my mum always said to me, You were difficult
from the start.‟ Sanghera 199.
When Jasvinder began to take her PhD, she was pushed by some arguments which stated her actions were wrong. The police called her. She had to
face a dilemmatic fact that she had to finish her PhD or work very hard at Karma Nirvana to help the victims. She was tired and she began crying. She thought it
was time to stop. However, she did not. By the time I got to stand beside her, to support and encourage her, she
was so battered by circumstance, so entrenched in her victimhood. The stories she had told me
– long convoluted stories in which physical violence, rape, deprivation and endless cruelty and callousness all pile in
on one another – exhaust me. If I‟m honest, I‟d rather not think about
them. But I have to Sanghera 204. Jasvinder sometimes felt hesitant about her decision to do her PhD. The
trouble was there were so many things to do at Karma Nirvana which had to be her priority. She had a commitment to dedicate her time, her effort and her ability
to Karma Nirvana. The PhD felt like her own private pleasure and she was
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struggling for it. She thought it was best to forget her PhD and go back to work. Gordon Riches could understand her decision.
The trouble was that with so much going on at Karma Nirvana, that had to be my priority. The PhD felt like my own private pleasure and I wanted to
go on with it but I was struggling, Gordon, bless him, understood. He made me work out
– realistically – how much time I could give to my studies and then he said, „Face it Jasvinder, it‟s not enough. You mustn‟t
let this hang like a dead weight round your neck. Why do n‟t you put it on
hold.‟ I left his office feeling that a burden had been lifted off my shoulders; for the first time in months I was confident that I could get my
life back under control. Sanghera 259
3. Comforting the Victims of Forced Marriage
Jasvinder imagined a support system for young women who had recently left their homes and been rejected by their families. Jasvinder did not only provide
a charity to protect the survivors but also comforted the survivors. First, she comforted Shazia. Shazia was a victim of forced marriage and she is a survivor
today. When she was seventeen, her parents took her to Pakistan. Her parents said it was for a holiday but after two weeks they told her that she was getting married
to a man she had never met before. She could escape and she met Jasvinder. Jasvinder said to Shazia when she believed in Jasvinder, she did not work alone
but Jasvinder would help her. Her next client was Kiren. Jasvinder received a phone call when she
accompanied her children in the Park. She thought there was a young woman hundreds of miles away who was desperate and need reassurance. She could not
procrastinate. She had to offer help for her. She said that there were safe houses,
