Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government in how many cases during 2017 the Forced Marriage Unit provided advice or support related to possible forced marriage to (1) a person aged 15 or under, and (2) a person aged 16 or 17.

The UK is a world-leader in the fight to stamp out the brutal practice of forced marriage, with our joint Home Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office Forced Marriage Unit (FMU) which leads efforts to combat it both at home and abroad. 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 FMU publishes statistics annually. The most recent statistics, published on 8 March 2017, show that the FMU gave advice or support related to a possible forced marriage in 1,428 cases. A breakdown shows that the FMU gave advice and support to 220 people between the ages of 1-15 and 151 people aged 16-17.

Statistics for 2017 will be published in due course.