World leaders and charities are gathering for the first Girl Summit, which aims to mobilise efforts to end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and Child, Early and Forced Marriage (CEFM). They’re both issues which affect women living in the UK as well as millions around the world.
CEFM was made illegal in the UK last month so we are not sure of the effect of the new legislation, but we are be able to give a glimpse into how prevalent it was in this country before.
What is forced marriage?
Forced marriage is defined as where one or both parties do not consent to the marriage and pressure is used to make them. This pressure can take many forms, from financial pressure, emotional blackmail or psychological pressure, and threats of or actual physical or sexual violence. It’s recognised in the UK as a form of violence against women and men, domestic abuse, child abuse, and an abuse of human rights.
Tackling a big problem
In 2005, the Forced Marriage Unit was set up as a body between the Home Office and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, with the aim of providing support and advice to victims of Forced Marriage. The FMU has to date only published statistics relating to 2012 and 2013.
In 2012, the FMU had to give advice or support related to possible forced marriages in 1,485 cases. Last year, that number had dropped to 1,302. The FMU obviously will not deal with every case of forced marriage in the country, just those it has been made aware of so the true scale of the issue is unclear.
What do we know about the victims?
More women than men were helped by the FMU. In both years, 82% of the victims were female, and 18% were male.
More than half of the victims that the FMU dealt with were under 21, with one in eight under the age of 16 – below the legal age of consent for marriage in the UK. Around a third of the victims were between 18 and 21.
In 2012, the youngest victim was just two years old, and the oldest was 71.
The issue of forced marriage is also made worse by the fact that worldwide, many of the victims are vulnerable people. Of those who were seen in the UK, 114 of the victims had disabilities, and 22 of the victims identified as LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual or transexual) in 2012. In 2013, 97 victims were known to have a disability, and 12 identified as LGBT.
In 2012, the FMU handled cases involving people from 60 different countries while in 2013 this had risen to 74. These could be nations that victims came from, or places to which victims are at risk of being taken or have already been taken in connection with a forced marriage. Over 40% of the cases involved Pakistan, with around 10% involving India or Bangladesh.
There aren’t reliable statistics about forced marriage worldwide simply because of its clandestine nature, and the fact that victims feel they can’t come forward.
There are, however, estimates of the percentage of women aged 20 to 49 in different countries who were married before the age of 18, released today by Unicef. The highest rates are in Niger (77%), Bangladesh (74%), Chad (69%), Mali (61%) and the Central African Republic (60%).
Campaigners hope that today's event will help put the spotlight on forced marriage and FGM and bring an end to both practices.
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