| THE passengers on the Virgin train were oblivious to the fact that the pretty young woman serving tea and coffee in the buffet was about to be made an MBE. For behind the ready smile lies a haunting story of abduction, an attempted forced marriage and an incredible flight for freedom. Narina Anwar, on the surface the part-time buffet car hostess and hard-up student, is a woman who, at 23, has been recognised in the New Year's Honours list for her remarkable life and achievements. But there was a time when all of this would have seemed impossible. Two years ago, Narina and her two younger sisters were tricked into leaving their home in Bolton and taken to a remote Pakistani village by their parents. There, they were held captive for five months while relatives tried to forced them into marriage with three illiterate villagers. But led by Narina, the girls escaped back to Britain, where Narina has since devoted her life to helping other young women in similar situations. "I feel even more motivated after this honour," she says. "I want to change things for the better." She tells her story without bitterness but recalls every agonising detail of her former life. Born to strict Muslim parents who moved to Britain in the 60s, Narina and her sisters Samina, 22, and Raisa, 17, and their three brothers, had their lives mapped out from the start. As the eldest of the six children, Narina was the first to suffer a cultural clash. At home, the children were expected to speak Punjabi and were forced to cover their heads. "Most of the children at my school weren't Asian and I'd just take the scarf off as soon as I got to school," she says. "I always felt as if I was leading a double life. "We girls had to do the cooking and cleaning at home. After my mum, my sisters and I had cooked, we'd spread a cloth on the floor and sit and eat there, while my father and brothers ate at the table. "My dad was always so strict with us and wasn't even keen for us to go on school trips." AS Narina entered her teens, tensions worsened. She remembers: "When we went to college, my dad insisted on dropping us off and picking us up, to make sure we weren't doing anything apart from studying." Even the purchase of a denim jacket led to trouble when Narina's father saw her wearing it at college. "He turned up early to collect us and I was standing in the street. I just froze. I was so scared I felt I wanted to be run down by a car rather than having to confront my dad. "He showered us with abuse and we burst into tears. My mum was told to throw the jacket away and I was made to feel I'd committed a crime against humanity. "As the oldest, I bore the brunt of all the abuse from my father. It was mainly emotional, though he did kick me a few times, too." Narina got mainly As and Bs in her nine GCSEs and planned to go to university. But her parents had other ideas and the threat of a forced marriage loomed. Aware of her parents' plans for her and her sisters, Narina only agreed to accompany them to Pakistan in July 2000 when she was told that her grandmother was desperately ill. "We'd actually started to formulate escape plans but because Raisa was under 16 we knew we couldn't take her with us or it would be abduction," she says. "I told my mum that I didn't want to be forced into marriage and she swore to me on the Koran that we'd just go for four weeks, see if there was any man I was interested in and, if not, I'd return to England." Even so, the girls took £350 with them and memorised their NI numbers in case their passports were taken away. As soon as they arrived they were filled with foreboding - their grandmother was fine. "The village was so remote, it was like travelling back in time," she says. "Women weren't allowed out alone and we were confined to the house. We weren't even allowed into the garden if male members of the family were there." Two weeks after they arrived, her mother told Narina it was time to choose a husband. SHE was distraught at the betrayal. "Babar, the cousin they had picked out, was 26, unattractive and brought up in rural ways - he used to beat up the buffalo he looked after... "I don't know how he would have coped if he'd come to England - which was the plan. He was illiterate and so different from me." Narina and her sisters began plotting their escape. "Our mobiles didn't work there and when we tried to call a friend in England by landline, we couldn't get through." Letters smuggled out also never arrived. They had no paper and wrote a detailed SOS message, complete with a map, on the edge of a page ripped from a magazine. "We didn't realise for weeks that our letters hadn't got through and we kept running up to the roof to see if anyone was coming to rescue us," she remembers. "We were so desperate." Eventually, the girls decided to flee. "We knew we might get shot but life out there wouldn't have been worth living anyway." With their passports in their parents' hands and under almost round-the-clock guard, the girls had to seize their moment. "The whole village was attending a funeral and an aunt was left to guard us," says Narina. "We started being really rude to her until she walked out." The girls dressed in dirty shawls to look like village women and fled across the fields until they reached a road and hailed a rickshaw. "We asked the driver to take us to a taxi rank. He looked suspicious but he took us." Two and a half hours later, the sisters were in Lahore, jubilant but terrified that they could be caught. At an internet café, they contacted friends in England and the British High Commission, where staff sent a hotel manager and a driver to collect them. "It was our first night of freedom but we were traumatised, ill and dehydrated. It was too dangerous for us to leave the hotel and the British officials moved us between different hotels until they managed to persuade our mother to hand over our passports." IN December, five months after arriving in Pakistan, the girls were finally flown to England and placed in a refuge while they began the long battle to build new lives for themselves. Today, two years later, Narina, Samina and Raisa live hundreds of miles from their parents. Not long after returning, Narina was granted a residency order to care for Raisa. "We all had nightmares about our father coming after us and catching us. Even just going out to McDonald's we felt we might get caught." Narina now juggles studying for a psychology degree with her job as a train buffet assistant and working with the Foreign Office to raise awareness of forced marriages. Samina is in the second year of a business studies degree and Raisa is taking her GCSEs. Both work part-time to pay their way. Their parents are back in Bolton and after months of silence, Narina decided to phone her mother on her birthday in May 2001. "As soon as my mum realised it was me she started crying and saying how much she loved me. "The whole thing was really unbearable. I said: 'Mum we love you but we need our freedom.' Narina visited her father for the first time in September 2001. "It wasn't easy. He gave me a hug but he was quite cold. My parents don't really understand or approve of the work I'm doing but, culture-wise, they don't know any different. It's hard to blame them. "It's difficult living without parental approval but I get a lot from helping others - that's all the approval I need. "Being made an MBE has really helped me feel that. "I definitely want to get married one day but I won't judge a man on whether he is Muslim. Religion is a private matter, not a cultural one. "I don't know what the future holds but, for now, I just want to use my experiences to help other people." |