Forced marriage in the United Kingdom still widely unreported despite law

Many cases of forced marriage in the United Kingdom have remained unreported, and the cases that make it to court are very few.

In West Yorkshire, 51 cases of forced marriage have been investigated since 2014, but only five have resulted in charges being filed, according to The Guardian.

In the West Midlands, 31 investigations were conducted, but 19 ended up with no charges being filed. Eight of these were dropped because the victims did not want to proceed with the investigation.

Only one case, in which a man secretly filmed a woman while she was in the shower and later forced her to be his second wife, resulted in a conviction. The man received a 16-year sentence for charges including bigamy, rape, and forced marriage.

In 2014, a new law forbidding forced marriages was passed in England and Wales. Based on the law, parents who force their children into marriage can be imprisoned for seven years.

With 1,300 cases of forced marriages investigated in 2013, 15 percent of which involved young people below 15 years old, the law was passed to encourage victims to speak up and report to the authorities.

"Nobody is going to be forcing you to prosecute or criminalise your parents. Reporting is the first thing you have to do and it will be your choice to pursue a criminal justice process," Jasvinder Sanghera of the Karma Nirvana charity addressed the victims, BBC reported.

However, two years later, police are still finding it difficult to bring cases to court, primarily because the victims are afraid to file cases against their abuser.

An eight-year-old boy, the youngest known victim of forced marriage so far, is among those guarded by a special court order in West Yorkshire.

Mak Chishty, the most senior Muslim police chief in Britain, encouraged more victims in the Muslim community to come forward.

"My message to the community and to victims is I recognise it's under-reported, I recognise it's going on. I need you – through friends, family, teachers – to come and tell me and my colleagues in policing so we can help," he said.

He also urged them to stop the practice because not only is it out of date, it is also a form of abuse against human rights. Stopping it would also not mean disrespecting the Muslim culture, said Chishty, who comes from a Muslim Pakistani background.

"That doesn't mean not practising your religion, this means conforming with human rights," he said.