'Honor' crime: Why just kissing a boy can trigger murder

London (CNN) -- Jasvinder Sanghera was eight years old when she was promised in marriage to a man she had never met. When, six years later, her mother showed Sanghera a photograph of her intended husband, the 14-year-old reacted with horror.

The pressure on the youngster mounted as Sanghera's Indian-born mother tried to involve her in the wedding arrangements. When she refused to marry the man, saying she wanted to finish her education in her hometown of Derby, in the English Midlands, her family held her prisoner in her bedroom until she relented, she said.

"In the end I said yes, but started to plan my escape," Sanghera, one of seven sisters, recalled. Her parents released her, and she promptly ran away from home. She was just 15 years old.

"My mother told me I couldn't come back until I agreed (to the marriage) or I was dead in their eyes. My family disowned me to this day.

"I'd shamed them and dishonored them. I don't talk to any of them any more. It's been 29 years since then."
When Sanghera left, her younger sister had to marry the man to whom she had been promised. "That was the only way [my parents] had to save honor, in their eyes," she told CNN.
Her parents, who have subsequently died, also forced her other sisters to enter into arranged marriages, she said. "As a young person growing up in Britain, going to their houses, you'd see horrific stories of them being beaten and abused," she said. "Yet my mother's response was to tell them to stay there because it was their duty to make the marriage work for the sake of our honor."

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Sanghera wept as she recalled the fate of one of her sisters, whom she said was beaten by her husband. "She went to my family, for help. But at the age of 24 she set herself on fire and committed suicide.
CNN's attempts to locate the husband to seek comment have been unsuccessful.
"Her death was a time for me where I recognized just how important honor is to a family." Sanghera added that for her parents, "losing a daughter in such a horrific way" had dishonored them.