Chennai: An SMS sent to the city police control room (9500099100) changed the life of a teenage girl who was forced into marriage by her parents in Arumbakkam. Banu (name changed) (17), a plus-two student, chose to send an SMS to the control as a last resort to save herself from the unwanted marriage arranged […]

The legal age for marriage differs from country to country. In the UK, this age is 18. With parental and participant consent combined, this can go as low as 16. Yet the number of cases that see marriages take place without participant consent is alarmingly high; and among South Asian communities in Britain, forced marriages (FM) are […]

The Halo Project is pleased to host the Criminalisation of Forced Marriage in the North East of England. We will hear from experts in the field who can help us understand what the implications of the new law mean and also how we need to change the way we respond to forced marriages. Speakers include, […]

A poster campaign aimed at mothers and carers who suspect a girl is at risk of female genital mutilation is being rolled out across major cities in England and Wales. The posters urge women, particularly those in Somali, Kenyan and Nigerian communities which have a higher prevalence of FGM, to call an NSPCC-dedicated helpline if […]

Unless you’ve been exposed to it, honour-based violence can be quite a complicated issue to understand. Maybe you’ve read about the victims in the newspapers or seen something about it on TV, so you know a bit about what’s involved. But by its nature, honour-based violence is something that happens behind closed doors and isn’t […]

Most would agree that with a women murdered every six days in Canada, we need to address gendered violence in all its forms. This cannot be done, tempting and reassuring as it might be, by simplistically attributing the problem to one religious group to the exclusion of others. In the Clarion Project’s latest documentary titled Honour […]

Teachers and schools should check on the holiday arrangements of pupils from communities which practice female genital mutilation (FGM), a conference was told. Delegates at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers’ annual conference became the first teachers to discuss the issue at a national conference yesterday when they called on the Home Office to draw […]

A 16-year-old Moroccan girl has committed suicide after a judge ordered her to marry her rapist, according to Moroccan media reports. Last year Amina al-Filali’s parents filed charges against their daughter’s rapist, a man 10 years older than her but it was only recently that a judge in the northern city of Tangier decided that […]

A 15-year-old student at Newham College organised a seminar on women’s rights that featured speeches by famous campaigners. Abdul Vijad, who lives in Manor Park, held the seminar at the College’s East Ham Campus as part of his Citizenship GCSE. Abdul, who was born in India, says he chose to invite speakers to discuss female […]