The girls told the police they were born and lived in the UAE and were scared that their newly married father would force them to marry in Mauritania.  Three young Mauritanian sisters who refused to travel to their home country because they feared being forced into marriage, were put up in the Dubai Women and […]

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Cultural traditions and a lack of legal protections are driving tens of millions of girls around the world into early marriage, subjecting them to violence, poverty and mistreatment, an international human rights group says. Equality Now, citing the United Nations Population Fund, said in a report issued over the weekend […]

The justice and legislation committee voted to scrap a clause in the penal code that stipulates there can be no grounds for lawsuits against those “who abducted or seduced a minor girl who has reached puberty, if she marries the person who abducted or seduced her,” the state-run MAP news agency said. The Justice and […]

A PARTINGTON man dragged his 18-year-old sister off a bus just hours after she had been granted a forced marriage protection order by magistrates in Manchester. Fahad Shoshan, 30, of Staffordshire Court, and another brother, had approached their sister in Piccadilly and asked her to come home, claiming their mother was ill. When she refused and […]

Jasvinder Sanghera, founder of the Leeds-based Karma Nirvana charity, who escaped her own forced marriage aged just 16, was at Allerton Grange School to launch the drive. It is part of her ongoing work to encourage the Government, schools, police and other agencies to focus on the issue as a child protection matter first and […]

In 2012, the UK’s Forced Marriage Unit dealt with 1,485 cases. 13 percent of those involved victims under 15 years old; 22 percent involved victims aged 16-17. Under a section of the Antisocial Behaviour Crime and Policing Bill, now going through the House of Lords, parents who “coerce, pressure or abuse” their children into marriage […]

The number of children who go missing during school holidays is on the rise, the Telegraph & Argus can reveal. New data shows 96 children failed to return to school as expected after the long summer break last year, the highest number in three years and a 55 per cent rise on the previous year’s […]

According to Human Rights Watch, 14 million girls are married, worldwide, each year – with some as young as eight or nine. While early and forced marriage appears most prevalent in countries of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, several recent cases have shown Australia is not immune to the practise. If the global trend […]

Protecting women and girls in Scotland from honour-based violence, forced marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM) requires action in a number of ways, but the first major step is to increase awareness among those at risk that help is available. Scotland has not yet got to grips with these problems but the latest figures do […]