A fifth of forced marriage cases last year were in London, official figures show

Apr 21, 2016 by Jill

by Hannah al-Othman, London Evening Standard:

A fifth of cases tackled by the government’s forced marriage unit (FMU) last year were in London, official figures show.

Forced marriage was made a criminal offence in 2014, and in 2015 the FMU gave advice or support relating to 1,220 possible forced marriage cases – a three per cent fall on last year.

The agency said that almost 80 per cent of referrals came from professionals or other third parties, such as friends or family, rather than victims themselves.

In London the unit dealt with 263 cases – 22 per cent of overall total referrals, figures released last month have shown.

Since it was established in 2005, the FMU has dealt with cases concerning over 90 countries, with the most cases in the last year relating to Pakistan, Bangladesh or India, followed by Somalia and Afghanistan.

There were also 175 cases where victims were identified as being at risk of being forced to marry within the UK.

Victims’ ages ranged from very young children to people post-retirement age, and in 12 per cent of cases dealt with nationally the victims had either a physical or learning disability.

Although 80 per cent of victims were female, there were 240 cases of men or boys being a risk of a forced marriage – and 87 of those were reported as having a disability.

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