What the law says

Forced marriage is recognised in the UK as a form of domestic violence, child abuse and a serious abuse of human rights.

The Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007 introduced civil remedies to protect individuals at risk of being forced into marriage, or to help remove them from a forced marriage situation, in the form of Forced Marriage Protection Orders.

Any of the 15 designated county courts, or the High Court, may make an order to prevent a forced marriage from occurring.

Examples of the types of orders the court may make are:

• to hand over all passports (where there is dual nationality) and birth certificates
• to stop intimidation and violence; 
• to reveal the whereabouts of a person; 
• to stop someone from being taken abroad; 
• to facilitate or enable a person to return to the UK within a given time period.

We’re only half-way there

Passing a new law is only one half of solving a problem; the other half lies in proper enforcement. When orders are made, they need to be properly monitored.

This means that all safeguarding professionals must be willing to take responsibility in ensuring a victim’s welfare and safety once an order has been issued by the court and must be vigilant to any sign that the victim could be at further risk. Sadly, they often are.

We’ve done some thinking about this at Karma Nirvana, and we aren’t aware of any other injunction in the UK under which the individual is returned to the perpetrator.

This underlines the need for greater understanding of the nature of honour-based abuse at the official level.

There’s no denying that official attitudes and approaches to forced marriage and honour-based violence have shifted in an ever more enlightened and positive direction, but the weaknesses in the Forced Marriage Act illuminate remaining gaps in understanding.

And what’s missing is an understanding of the psychology of honour-based violence.

A ‘slap on the wrist’ by the police and the courts will not work in these cases.

A stronger, more radical approach is needed if we want to do more than simply be seen to be addressing this problem. Token gestures aren’t enough.

We’ll be making this case to Government as we continue to lobby for a zero-tolerance approach to all forms of honour-based violence in the UK.