In May 2018, a mother who had forced her daughter to marry a relative 16 years her senior was convicted in the first successful prosecution of forced marriage in England. Years before the ceremony, the girl had been entered into a "marriage contract" with the man and became pregnant, aged just 13. Then, as she approached her 18th birthday, she was tricked into travelling to Pakistan again under the pretence of a family holiday. When the daughter protested against the marriage, her mother threatened to burn her passport and assaulted her.
Prosecutions for forced marriage, which became an offence in 2014, are rare and this was the first time a forced marriage case of this kind has been successfully prosecuted in an English court. This is partly because victims may be reluctant to come forward to the authorities. A recent Guardian investigation highlighted that more than 3,500 reports of forced marriage were made to police over a three-year period.
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