60 children rescued by UK’s Forced Marriage Unit
The British Government has released figures showing that, in the past four years, about 60 children aged 15 or less—and as young as nine—have been rescued by the Forced Marriage Unit.
The cases are feared to be the tip of the iceberg. They will fuel concerns, first raised earlier this year, that large numbers of children are disappearing from British schools to be forced into wedlock overseas.
A charity which runs a national helpline on forced marriage and “honour”-based crimes, Karma Nirvana, revealed that in one incident a nine-year-old girl from a Pakistani family in the east Midlands was taken into council care after her parents told her she was to wed.
Jasvinder Sanghera, director of Karma Nirvana, said that on average four children a month aged under 16 have contacted its helpline since it launched in April.
A nine-year-old girl who had told her teacher she was going to be forced to marry was apprehended in the family car on the way to the airport. She was set to fly to Bangladesh to be married to a 19-year-old man. The girl has now been placed in foster care.
The problem is particularly prevalent in Pakistani communities, where betrothing offspring to their first cousins is common practice, said Ms Sanghera.
“It happens across all races but there is a disproportionate number of cases within the Pakistani community, and we need to recognise that,” she said.
Earlier this year, it was disclosed that over 2000 British school children were missing and unaccounted for, raising fears that many of them had been forced into marriages overseas.
[...] AN ASTONISHING 60 children rescued by UK’s Forced Marriage Unit …. [...]