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3 Oct 2014

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Home Truths - with John Peel 大象传媒 Radio 4

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Forbidden Love

Jack is English and Zena is Pakistani. Zena was due to have an arranged marriage but met Jack and decided that she wanted to marry for love. Her family disapproved so Jack and Zena (not their real names) decided to run away together. They've now been on the run from her family for the last five years.

The Fear:
Zena: The last time I spoke to my family was 3 years ago because every time I rang up I was getting threats. We've moved 21 times. We sleep with knives and a baseball bat by our bed. That's the hardest part.
Jack: I don't think when we left we realised the consequences we'd bring upon ourselves. My sister had so many threatening phonecalls, she had to have a tap put on the phone and had to be relocated. On one occasion very late at night, 3 or 4 men went down to my mother's house and smashed her windows.

Loss of Identity:
Jack: Special branch have given us a new id, but it's like being in a card game and getting dealt cards with no pictures on them.
Zena: We were tracked down once after we left by our original birth names. We've spent 23 hours in one room together - it's like a prison sentence.

Their life as a couple:
Zena: even when we have rows we're not like other couples because before we walk out of that door we have to pick up our pagers and tell each other exactly where we're going and when we'll be back. We can't sulk for more than five minutes, cos we've got no one else to talk to!
Jack: We've got door-slamming off to a fine art! You can tell by the tone just exactly how mad we are at each other.

Their Future:
Zena: We've discusses this at great length but we've decided that it would be wrong to bring a child into this situation and I don't think we could cope with them at the moment.
Jack: we're both suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Zena's faith:
Zena: my religion has always been a really strong part of my life. I have my holy Koran. I'm proud of who I am so I've never, ever blamed my religion. It's go nothing to do with religion - it's to do with pride and honour and having to disobey your parents and at end of the day, to bring Islam into it is not the right thing. But I've never imposed it on Jack so I wouldn't ask him to convert because it has to come from your own heart. I blame my family for putting me through what we've been through. I've never lost my love for them but there's a lot of anger there.

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