Press Trust Of India Posted online: Tuesday, September 06, 2005 at 1111 hours IST
London, September 6: In an effort to clampdown on forced marriages mostly prevalent in a section of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, the British government today said it was considering making it a criminal offence, an official spokesman said today.
Under the proposed plan, parents who coerce their children into forced marriages could face prosecution and imprisonment. Currently families who compel their children to marry can be charged only with offences like assault or kidnap.
But now ministers are holding a three-month consultation to decide whether to create a specific criminal offence of forcing someone to marry. "Forced marriage is marriage without freely given consent," Home Office Minister Baroness Scotland told reporters, adding "it is an abuse of human rights and a form of domestic violence which cannot be justified on religious or cultural grounds," she said a new offence would act as a preventative measure and "say to people this is wrong...It's like a clarion call that this is not legal, you are not going to get away with it. I don’t know if it's true that it will make it less likely that people come forward that's why the consultation is so important."
She said the government recognized that this was "a very sensitive issue with no clear or easy answers," adding it is "not a South East Asian issue," she argued, but affected communities including, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Syria, Sri Lanka, US, Holland, Somalia, Lebanon, Hong Kong, Turkey and Bosnia.
But many young people involved in forced marriages have a "real dilemma," Baroness Scotland said.
"They love their parents they want to continue the relationship but they want to stop what's happening. They want to stop the abuse."
She said British families with arranged marriage traditions had nothing to fear from the proposals, adding, "we have to be absolutely clear that arranged marriage is absolutely permissible".
The joint home and foreign office forced marriage unit has dealt with 1,000 cases over the past four years, the spokesman said.
The police have already told the government that forced marriage should be a new, separate offence. They believe bringing in a new law would make prosecutions easier and send a clear message that intimidating young people into marriages they do not want is unacceptable in the UK.
In a government consultation document, entitled 'Forced marriage - a wrong, not a right,' ministers accept that the arguments against creating a specific criminal offence outweigh those for it.
"Forcing someone into marriage against their will is a clear abuse of their human rights. The police service is committed to tackling forced marriage and where a criminal offence has taken place, we will take positive action to en force and uphold the law," a spokesman for the association of chief police officers said.
"The police service welcomes the forthcoming consultation in the creation of a specific offence for forcing someone into marriage. We will continue to provide support to victims of such practices and protect those at risk," the spokesman said.
Creating a specific offence would cost around 420,000pounds in the first year of implementation and 220,000 pounds in subsequent years.
The government would also want to be able to prosecute in the case of forced marriages that take place overseas, where the perpetrator and the victim are British citizens.
Forced marriages differ entirely from legitimate arranged marriages, which take place with the consent of all parties involved.
