MikeLigalig.com

The revelation from Karma Nirvana, a Derby-based charity which runs a helpline for victims of forced marriages, comes after a Government warning to teachers, doctors and airport staff that school pupils who seem to be going away on holiday may in fact be heading towards an arranged marriage.

Forced marriages are especially common during the summer holidays, when there’s less of a chance the child’s absence will be noticed.

The Foreign Office’s Forced Marriage Unit received 400 reports in the three months up to the end of August last year, though it is believed that many more cases go unreported. More than a third of those affected are under 16.

Karma Nirvana, which was set up by Jasvinder Sanghera who was disowned by her Sikh family aged 16 when she refused to marry a man in India, takes about 600 calls a month.

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The cases handled by the Forced Marriage Unit include a two-year-old victim while the oldest victim was a 71-year-old. Almost half of the 1,500 cases handled a year involve Pakistan, Bangladesh counts for 11 per cent and India eight per cent.

Sameem Ali, a Manchester city councillor, was forced into a marriage in Pakistan when she was 13, and was brought back to the UK months after she became pregnant, aged 14.

She told BBC Breakfast: “I did not know I was going to get forced into a marriage until a week before the marriage actually occurred. I had never seen the guy before. I was in the middle of nowhere and I did not know where I was.”




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The majority of cases involved Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, although Sikhs and Hindus were also being forced into marriage. Ministers believe that a key to stamping out the practice is better enforcement of immigration rules. Most victims of forced marriages sponsor immigration applications for their new spouse and are too frightened to alert the authorities. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/)

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