| Submit your comments on this article | |
| Britain | |
| Police call for law on forced marriage | |
| 2005-03-21 | |
| Police today called for forced marriage to be made a specific criminal offence. Currently, families who compel their children to marry can be charged only with offences like assault or kidnap. Officers were set to tell a London conference today that in the past two years nearly 500 people have asked for help to avoid being forced into marriages. Metropolitan Police research suggests a link between forced marriage and honour killings and officers say a specific offence would make prosecutions easier. Honour killings are when people are murdered because they are deemed to have shamed their families and can happen when someone refuses to marry a partner chosen for them.
Figures to be revealed at today's conference show that 492 cases have been reported to police forces in England and Wales over the past two years. Last year, Government officials said a special unit within the Foreign Office had dealt with almost 1000 cases of forced marriage since it was set up in 2000. It had also rescued and repatriated to the UK 70 young people a year from overseas. Although the issue is often assumed to affect only women, 15 per cent of cases identified by officials involved men and boys. Last year, the Government revealed they were considering plans to make forcing someone to marry against their will a crime. The Home Office is consulting on a specific offence to help young people coerced into relationships. Other plans include raising the minimum age that a foreigner can enter the UK as a spouse from 16 to 18. Almost 1000 cases of suspected forced marriages have been dealt with since 2000, mainly involving links to south Asian countries. The Home and Foreign Offices established a joint forced marriage unit to combat the problem, which focuses on preventative action through professionals such as teachers, police officers or social workers. | |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #3 Police say making forced marriages illegal would send a clear message that this is not acceptable in the UK. This practically guarantees that such a law won't be enacted. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-03-21 1:06:43 PM |
| #2 You'd think these chicks would eventually get a clue and whack out Dad and the Bros before they get a chance to off the "dishonouring female"... "Do unto others before they do unto you." |
| Posted by: mojo 2005-03-21 11:25:17 AM |
| #1 Why doesn't the Home Office just bureaucratically declare forced marriages as falling under the old anti-slavery laws and hammer the families for trafficing in the trade? Oh, wait, that wouldn't be PC, respecting someone else's culture in the middle of England. |
| Posted by: Thans Anginetch3773 2005-03-21 10:10:25 AM |