A couple of weeks ago, I came across Alan Moore’s Writing for Comics and Alex put together a handy list resources for comic making. I wish I could say I followed any of the advice of The Great comic writers when I wrote ours.
Instead, and as so often in academia, I made it up as I went along. I reminded myself of the themes I wanted to address and the points I wanted to get across. I then collaged bits and pieces of information together into stories about forced marriage using a comic scripting template that Emma had kindly shared. When I had a complete draft, I shared it with the project partners who provided feedback based on their expertise.
In the funding application to the AHRC, I boldly said the comic would “focus on different forms, drivers and consequences of forced marriage in the UK, the agency and resistance of victim-survivors, and possibilities for interventions to provide psychological, socio-economic and legal support.”
What I wanted to show was that forced marriage is not just something that happens to Other people in faraway lands. They happen in every community in every country, including the UK. And when there is a connection to the UK, forced marriage does not always look like a South Asian Muslim girl being taken on a “holiday” to her family’s country of origin where she is surprised with her own wedding to her uncle’s friend or a cousin. Instead, girls and boys, women and men experience forced marriages. A marriage can be forced for one or both spouses. Pressure to marry is exercised by male and female family members, friends, and members of the community. But it is not someone’s culture or religion. In fact, none of the major religions allows forced marriage. Rather, forced marriages are driven, for example, by concerns about family reputation and honour; perceived obligation to comply with certain interpretations of traditions and beliefs; family debt; a desire to ensure what is considered to be a safe and better future; disapproval of mixed romantic and extramarital sexual relationships; or censure of non-normative sexualities and gender identities.
I wanted to indicate that forced marriage leads to more than teenage pregnancy and a disrupted education. It has physical, psychological, social, and economic impacts on victim-survivors as well as their families and communities. However, it does not have to lead to unhealthy or abusive relationships. But there are cases where forced marriage amounts to modern slavery.
I wanted to emphasise that people do not have to acquiesce to a marriage they do not actually want. Everyone has a choice, admittedly sometimes that choice is between a rock and a hard place. But there are people and organisation that offer advice and support.
I wanted to shout that forced marriage is not something that people can just dismiss because it does not seem to affect them. People have to speak out, step up, and step in.
Drawing on my research and survivors’ stories, I collaged those elements into eight stories. To make the stories relatable to our target audience, all focus on forced marriage in the UK and have teenage protagonists who represent different ethnic and religious communities. The first story contrasts forced marriages and consensual relationships. The second one addresses the grey areas between forced and arranged marriages. This chimes with Azedah’s story. In addition, Azedah’s story indicates that, while neither Azedah nor her future husband might have agreed to the arrangement and Azedah tries to avoid or at least postpone it, it leads to a positive relationship. Becca’s story focuses on the relationship between forced marriage and modern slavery. She is forced into a marriage to clear her father’s debt and experiences possessive control over her movements, labour and sexuality exercised by her forced husband. Chen’s story highlights that forced marriage affects boys, for example to constrain homosexuality and romantic relationships with a person from a different ethnic or religious group. It also shows that pressure to marry can be exercised by women, in this case Chen’s mother. Emina’s story indicates disability-related concerns for her wellbeing as a driver for parental and community pressure to marry and the impact it could have on her independence, education, and social life. The story of the friend illustrates possible signs of forced marriage and ways in which a third person can help and support someone at risk of or already in a non-consensual relationship. In addition, all stories include possible points for resistance by the protagonist and intervention of friends, family members, neighbours, support organisations, teachers, and officials. The last story contextualises forced marriage in other human rights violations and forms of “honour”-based abuse.
Using Emma’s template, I explained the themes and key points I wanted to get across in each story. I described the scene in each panel and wrote the text for captions, speech and thought bubbles. I reformatted the purely text-based script into possible comic page layouts to better imagine the flow and pace of each story.
Sharing the script with the project partners and receiving their feedback was invaluable. It helped to adjust the plot and language to be closer to the reality of young teenagers, how and where they meet and form relationships. The feedback also led me to move away from crisis scenarios to stories that emphasise possibilities for prevention. I highlighted the social and psychological pressure on victims and the impact of (the threat of) forced marriage on their mental health. This can mean that people acquiesce to an “arranged” marriage but do not freely consent. I changed the perpetrator characters to show that they are not necessarily bad people and instead might be convinced they are doing the right thing. Along the same lines, victims might not always be aware that they are forced into a marriage and instead might see it as marriage as usual. I included the message that help can be found in unexpected places and that a starting point would be to speak to a trusted person.
Once the script had been “finalised” (and I say this in quotation marks because we are still making amendments based how the stories and words actually work as comic art), Emma began to sketch and draw the stories. Keep your eye peeled for the post describing her process!
Even though I said in the beginning of this post that I wish I would have followed the advice of The Great comic writers, I am not actually sure that is true. I wrote the comic in quite an organic way. For some stories, the bits and pieces of information just seem to fall into place and fitted nicely. Others needed the input from project partners to lose their bumps and make sense. I wrote speech and thought bubbles based on what I imagined characters would say and think in the situations I put them in. Sometimes I adjusted them to get a particular message across or create a point for discussion, or to make them more realistic following feedback I had received. I had to remind myself of the power of captions and use it to clarify or support the message. I guess in the end I did it my way.
Written by Hannah Baumeister
Drawing on Forced Marriage 