Preventing Forced Marriage in the UK

Speaking in Parliament on the 3rd anniversary of the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act, Helen Grant MP (Maidstone & the Weald), urged caution in response to calls for the offence to be criminalised.

She said "Forced Marriage is a terrible offence which crushes self-esteem and is often accompanied by other offences such as kidnapping and assault. The existing legislation seeks to protect someone from being forced to marry against their wishes, and so far there have been 257 protection orders with only 5 breeches. One person has been jailed."

She went on to say "The Government are consulting on whether forced marriage should be criminalised and I will be sharing my views as a family lawyer for over 20 years. We need to ensure that the potential victims of forced marriage can maintain control of events and not be relegated to a role as a mere witness to the crime. We also need to work with communities, schools and other official agencies to change attitudes and behaviours to stamp out forced marriage."

Helen Grant MP sponsored the panel discussion and worked with Plan UK to bring interested parties together to debate this important topic. The panel was Chaired by Ritula Shah, presenter of the World Tonight on BBC Radio 4, and other speakers were Marie Staunton, CEO of Plan UK, and Jasvinder Sanghera, Director and founder of Karma Nirvana.

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