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Aina Khan, featured in The Telegraph on the 3rd July 2015 discussing the demonisation of Shariah marriage in the UK and the vulnerable Muslim women left as victims as a result.

With the rise of Sharia marriages in Britain, Aina Khan spoke to the The Telegraph regarding the issue of demonisation of Shariah marriages in the UK and the consequent victimisation of vulnerable Muslim women.

The article, written by The Telegraphs’s Myriam Francois-Cerrah, explores the topic of polygamy in Muslim marriages the manner in which this shrouds the perspective of Shariah marriage in the UK, leaving many Muslim women in a vulnerable position.

Aina was quoted in the article saying;

“Although many people will be cohabiting or having mistresses, Muslims can’t do that. Polygamy leaves women vulnerable. If you’re cohabiting and you don’t know you’re rights, it is the same position whether you’re Muslim or not, because there are no cohabitee rights (..) because women have an Islamic marriage certificate, they feel protected, but it is a false sense of security – they think they can’t be made homeless overnight, but they can. This is a major issue.”.

The original article can be found here.
Aina’s feature in The Telegraph coincides with her Register Our Marriage (ROM) roadshow, a series of national press conferences taking place throughout the UK aimed to inform and to tackle the serious and rapidly growing problem of unregistered religious marriages and suggesting solutions, including legal reform, Law Commission consideration and a widespread education campaign about legal pitfalls.

Aina’s “Register Our Marriage” (ROM) roadshow has already seen successful turnouts throughout the UK, including Bradford, London and Birmingham.

In her roadshow press conferences, Aina addresses the importance of registering religious marriages in the UK. It is estimated that around 80% of British Muslims aged under 30 are in unregistered marriages and that this is growing.

As a consequence, couples are left with no legal rights upon relationship breakdown or to inheritance and pension rights. Given the shocking deficiency in quantitative and qualitative data, intellectual paralysis has set in.

With this in mind, Aina Khan has initiated the “ROM” Project to lobby for an update of the Marriage Act 1949, which at present only covers Church of England, Jews and Quakers. This project enjoys Interfaith, Cross-Party and grassroots support and the ROM National Working Group is making strong inroads.

For more information on the Register Our Marriage Roadshows, please consult the event facebook page by clicking here.

Read more here.