A LEADING campaigner against forced marriage and an advisor to the Foreign Office’s Forced Marriage Unit (FMU) has said the latest “shocking” figures on the issue are the “tip of the iceberg”.

Aneeta Prem, the founder of Freedom Charity, also revealed that 20 per cent of victims referred to the organisation are men and young boys.

Her comments were in response to statistics published in The Guardian on Monday (28), which revealed more than 3,500 forced marriage reports have made been to police in the past three years.

The report also added that charity Karma Nirvana had received almost 9,000 calls in 2017, including more than 200 from children under 15, related to forced marriage.

Prem told Eastern Eye that there are still far more cases yet to be exposed. “It’s a huge problem in the UK – it is increasing and not getting better. We know there are a lot more people going through this, but are too afraid to report it,” she said.

Yasmin Khan, the CEO and founder of Halo Project, a support network for forced marriage and honour-based violence victims, told Eastern Eye there is still a lack of awareness and understanding of what agencies should do to protect vulnerable adults and children.

“The important issue must be to protect and support those at risk, ensuring the first point of disclosure and reporting is dealt with correctly,” she said. “It is of paramount importance we help and support women, not just for forced marriage but for all the added abuse which comes with this violation of human rights.”

When contacted by Eastern Eye, a spokesperson from the Home Office said since the
introduction of the FMU in 2008, over 1,500 Forced Marriage Protection Orders prevented
people from being forced into a marriage and to assist in repatriating victims.

For far too long the authorities in this country have backed off from talking about forced marriage – partly due to ignorance of what is involved, but mainly because they are scared of being called racist, writes Saira Khan

As I watched those loving glances pass between Harry and Meghan last week, I couldn’t help but think of my own wedding.

It was everything it should have been – one of the happiest days of my life.

But as I looked into my groom’s eyes and said my vows, I knew I was doubly lucky – so many girls of my cultural background are not allowed to marry for love.

So I was gratified to see the four- and-a-half-year jail sentence passed this week in Birmingham on a woman for taking her 13-year-old daughter to Pakistan and forcing her to sign a marriage contract with a 29-year-old man who then raped his terrified young “bride” and made her pregnant.

For far too long the authorities in this country have backed off from talking about forced marriage – partly due to ignorance of what is involved, but mainly because they are scared of being called racist.

As a British child in a family of Pakistani origin, I grew up watching young girls – and sometimes boys – being taken to Pakistan, India or even to different parts of the UK and made to marry partners their parents had chosen for the benefit of family and community honour.

In many ways, it’s the story of Rochdale and Telford all over again – police, social workers and politicians turning a blind eye to flagrant law-breaking in the name of not offending religious and cultural sensitivities.

Just as they wrote off those girls who were groomed and abused by mainly Asian gangs, they also ignored the plight of thousands of Asian teenagers married off to strangers and made to abandon their education for early motherhood and forced domesticity.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/saira-khan-forced-marriage-often-12601067

Official unit says issue is hidden crime and figures may not reflect full scale of abuse

Nearly 1,200 possible forced marriage cases were flagged up to a specialist service last year, figures show.

Of the 1,196 reports handled by the government’s Forced Marriage Unit (FMU), more than a quarter involved victims below the age of 18, while one in five related to male victims.

The total number of cases registered in 2017 was down by 19% on the previous year, but officials said the fall did not represent a decrease in prevalence of forced marriage in the UK.

Forcing someone to marry against their will is a criminal offence that carries a maximum sentence of seven years. A forced marriage is defined as one in which one or both spouses do not consent to the union, and violence, threats or any other form of coercion are involved.

Hundreds of honour violence and forced marriage crimes are going unpunished in London, according to new figures.

Data shows that police recorded 759 honour violence crimes and 265 forced marriages in the capital between 2015 and 2017 – but just 138 people were charged with offences.

The statistics also show that prosecution rates for both crimes have fallen in the past three years.

Charities and campaigners today said the figures were worrying when nationally statistics showed the number of women coming forward to make allegations was rising.

Diana Nammi, executive director of the Iranian & Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation, which provides refuge for victims, said : “What makes it so alarming is that figures that we obtained through freedom of information requests show that, at the same time, since the criminalisation of forced marriage in 2014, many more people at risk than ever before are coming forward for help.

“As “honour” based violence is perpetrated by the victim’s own family and community there is a lot of pressure on victims to drop cases and too often justice is not seen. “London must not be a safe haven for perpetrators of these horrific, damaging crimes. We need to see much more action from the Mayor of London to tackle “honour” based violence and his priority must be to fund women’s rights organisations like IKWRO who are best placed to support victims and survivors who courageously come forward.”

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/honour-violence-and-forced-marriage-crimes-go-unpunished-in-london-a3749331.html