Police urge forced marriage law

[Anisa]

Police urge forced marriage law

A special government unit has been set up to deal with forced marriage
Forced marriage should be made a specific criminal offence, police say.
Currently families who compel their children to marry can be charged only with offences like assault or kidnap.

Officers will tell a London conference later that in the past two years nearly 500 people have asked for help to avoid being forced into marriages.

Metropolitan Police research suggests a link between forced marriage and honour killings and officers say a specific offence would make prosecutions easier.

Honour killings are when people are murdered because they are deemed to have shamed their families and can occur when someone refuses to marry a partner chosen for them.

Police say making forced marriages illegal would send a clear message that this is not acceptable in the UK.

The BBC's Neil Bennett says forced marriages are an under reported problem and it is therefore impossible to say how many young Britons are being pressurised into marriages they don't want.

But he says police figures to be revealed at Monday's conference show that 492 cases have been reported to police forces in England and Wales over the past two years.

'Rescue'

Last year, government officials said a special unit within the Foreign Office had dealt with almost 1,000 cases of forced marriage since it was set up in 2000.

It had also rescued and repatriated to the UK 70 young people a year from overseas.

Although the issue is often assumed to affect only women, 15% of cases identified by officials involved men and boys.

A forced marriage is one conducted without the full consent of both parties and under duress.

At present, anyone found guilty of forcing someone into marriage can be prosecuted for kidnap, false imprisonment or rape.

[Ahlam_2005]

Do u think it wud stop in morocco.Father,brother and the wud be husband all must charged with rape,attempt for prostution for forced marriage as it is often done to get money from the groom who might be an old rich man so the father,brother of the bride can live in style.This is killing of the womans honour and where in islam it is written to do so and disrespect a woman.

For honour killings every person is a individual and can decide their soul mate,so no dishonour is brought to the family.murder is a murder and no human has got right to take somebody elses life.i think change must be made to the society in practising islam.
'Koran' was writeen 1400 yrs ago when ppls 'niyat' was good.today the 'niyat' of such brothers and fathers is not good the law must change for protecting the woman.
To do so police in morocco must enforce prosecution agaisnt forced marriage and honour killings.only then these men might have fear and stop doing such horrid acts.
ATleast in urban areas the women wudnt have the fear to go police,rural areas can take example of urban women.still in some houses it may go unnoticed but there can be steady change.
i personally beleive if u help yrself thats the best help than crying on 'naseeb'or countig for another ppls help or mercy.Allah helps ppl who help themselves.

[HOUDA-K]

Forced marriages are a violation of human rights.

[Anisa]

about time too!

[Ghazala]

The UK Press tend to concentrate on cases from the Asian community. Does anyone have info/figures for Morocco?

Aside being a human rights violation, it is also haram.

[coolpharess]

forced marriages are not fair and are harmful!
but please stop demonsing MEN.