There are estimated to be around 5,000-8,000 young people in the UK being forced into marriage.
David Cameron has announced he wants forced marriage to be made a criminal offence. However, not everyone agrees that this will help the victims. The government feels that the signal they send out to not criminalise it is a bad one – sometimes using criminal punishment is needed to reinforce persuasion against it.
However, some feel that prevention rather than prosecution is best for the children involved in forced marriages. In developing countries many girls are often pulled out of school and forced to marry.
There is a finely balanced argument among those who support the victims and the government. At the centre of the debate is the question of whether a new criminal offence will actually encourage the girls and young women involved to disclose the nature of the abuse and coercion they have suffered mostly at the hands of their own families, or whether they will work harder to hide this abuse.
Many victims hope to still reconnect with their families and they will only seek help if this isn’t jeopardised in the future. Criminalising forced marriage may in some cases discourage victims to speak out.
Some poor families in developing countries choose to marry off their daughters in exchange for things, such as livestock. In the UK, families imposing forced marriage are from overseas where it’s practised. This is usually down to family honour – it can come down to an overprotective family feeling that adolescent girls need to be safeguarded and kept away from public places – peer or family pressure, strengthening family links, financial gain and care, particularly of girls with disabilities.
Some communities in developing countries have agreed to end early forced marriages. But this can take on average 6 years for the entire agreement to be met by everyone in the community. The worry for those currently working to prevent forced marriage is that the government will feel their job is done just by making it a criminal offence. Many feel that this alone isn’t enough and we still need to work on preventing forced marriage and helping the victims.
In particular, many of those involved in this field believe that families would continue find ways around the legislation in the UK, especially by the simple expedient of taking the potential victim abroad. Those working with the victims argue that investing in prevention, protection of victims and the provision of support services will offer better results.
Do you think forced marriage should be criminalised? There are valid arguments to support both sides, but the difficulty governments are having facing culturally sensitive issues shouldn’t outweigh the rights to protect these children.
Help to campaign against forced marriage.
About the author:
Ross Stevens is a content writer on behalf of Plan UK, who enjoys copious amounts of tea while writing topical blog posts for various sites on the Internet. Plan UK specialises in charity work for various campaigns, such as “sponsor a child” and “because I am a girl”, which work to help children born in the poorest of countries.
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