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Forced Marriage

Prevalence and Service Response

Did you know?

Within local organisations, 41% of reported forced marriage cases concerned victims under the age of 18.

from : Forced marriage

About this study

The Forced Marriage study was conducted in response to a Home Affairs Committee Enquiry that called for research into:

• the prevalence of forced marriage in the UK,
• and analysis of how local authorities, schools and agencies were responding to the problem.

One key finding when it reported in June 2009 was that between 5,000 and 8,000 cases of forced marriage may have been reported in England in 2008 alone.

Our research revealed that among some statutory services there is little understanding of forced marriage, making the problem difficult to identify and tackle. This seems to be true even in local authorities with a relatively high number of reported cases.

How we worked

The Forced Marriage report was commissioned by the Department for Children, Schools and Families with support from the Forced Marriage Unit. We worked in collaboration with Dr Nazia Khanum, who is author of the influential report 'Forced Marriage, family cohesion and community engagement', based on a case study of Luton.

Potential policy impact

Our report informed the creation of new guidelines for teachers, doctors and the police on how to identify and tackle the problem of forced marriage. These guidelines were issued by the Forced Marriages Unit.

Future Government policy in the area will also make use of the report.

Method

We asked key national and local organisations from ten local authorities how many forced marriage cases they had dealt with in 2008.

We then extrapolated this number to produce a national estimate.

Our research on service response involved 40 qualitative in-depth interviews with professionals from both statutory and voluntary organisations in four local authorities.

Now learn more

You can read a summary of the findings or click the download full report link, below.

Of interest: