Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the implications for its policies of the number of successful prosecutions for forced marriage.

The Government is committed to tackling the practice of forced marriage and providing the best protection possible to victims. We made forced marriage a criminal offence in 2014 to better protect victims and send a clear message that this abhorrent practice is totally unacceptable and will not be tolerated in the UK. The recent Crown Prosecution Service Violence Against Women and Girls Crime Report, published in September 2016, shows that the volume of prosecutions completed in 2015-16 rose to 53 – a rise from 46 in 2014-15.

As part of the wider work to improve the police response to so-called ‘honour’ based violence, we will continue to work with partners to review the implementation of the new forced marriage legislation and lead efforts to tackle this crime. The joint Home Office/ Foreign Office Forced Marriage Unit (FMU) leads efforts to combat forced marriage both at home and abroad.

The FMU works closely with a range of voluntary and community sector and support organisations through an ongoing programme of outreach. We are encouraged by the first conviction secured in June last year, but there is still work to be done. We want to see more victims having the confidence to come forward and to raise awareness of these crimes.