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You're a terrified 15-year-old girl. You're being subjected to daily harassment, beatings and emotional blackmail, regularly locked in your bedroom and told you can't go to school. You suspect you are going to be raped and your parents are perpetrating all this.
Forced marriage involves assault, false imprisonment and sexual abuse. Families can also kidnap young women, and sometimes men, after they have been taken 'on holiday' abroad. Alone in a foreign country without money or their passport, they are forced to marry the person who has been chosen for them. But forced marriage is not a crime in itself. A government consultation last year heard passionate views from black and Asian women's groups on both sides of the argument and concluded that current criminal law is sufficient without creating a separate offence.This was a bitter disappointment to some but the matter has not been dropped. Today, the House of Lords will hear the second reading of a new civil bill introduced by Lord Lester of Herne Hill, offering victim protection against forced marriages together with financial compensation after the event.
A lawyer with a long history of crafting liberal legislation, Lord Lester took advice from the Equal Opportunities Commission, the children's commissioners, women's groups and fellow Sikh and Muslim peers.
Lord Lester says: "The level of abuse is completely horrific and a serious social evil. When I saw last summer that the government had rejected making forced marriage a crime, I wondered what we could do about it. After taking soundings from various people, I became quite clear that the Protection Against Harassment Act and the Family Act provide insufficient protection."
The resulting forced marriage (civil protection) bill he has written prohibits forcing anyone into a marriage they don't want. Victims' extended families are often heavily involved in helping to plan such weddings, so the bill also outlaws any form of collusion. And it is not only the victim who can bring an action; court proceedings can be instigated by others acting on behalf of an individual at risk.
But will this help vulnerable teenagers? No choice is easy, explains 17-year-old Aisha Khan (name changed) who is still struggling with her feelings about the family who violently abused and threatened her with death when she refused to marry two years ago.
"I wouldn't go so far as to get them prosecuted because I love my parents. I wouldn't do anything to get them sent down. Not many girls would. Maybe an injunction to stop them hassling me but I wouldn't want to hurt them as they hurt me."
Hannana Siddiqui, of Southall Black Sisters, says the prospect of relatives ending up in jail, as might happen if police pursue a criminal case, could deter a woman from seeking help. Women have told her that the fact that civil proceedings are victim-led is reassuring because it gives them more control over events.
"This bill is more about future violence, rather than something that has already happened," she says. "It might be possible for victims to get a non-molestation order and still stay living at home, but with a criminal law you can't prosecute and stay in the family home; it would just be impossible. And if the situation becomes serious there are criminal offences the police can use but there is a reluctance by the justice system to use the existing criminal law."
However, Jasvinder Sanghera, founder of the Derby-based support group Karma Nirvana and once a victim of forced marriage, worries about how seriously the government is taking the issue. "As we didn't get the criminal offence, I am fully in support of this civil protection bill. It's something rather than nothing. It raises the debate, and gives formal recognition to the fact that these things are happening in the UK to minors and vulnerable women," she explains.
"I will continue to support criminalisation. I always go back to the domestic violence debate. It was said people wouldn't prosecute their partners but the legislation was eventually passed. It is difficult to contemplate the fact that all sorts of criminal activities are going on and we're condoning it."
The government's Forced Marriage Unit alone deals with between 250 and 300 cases a year, 30% of which involve minors. This figure takes no account of the cases reported to police, social services or the many women's support groups. So the need for action, Lord Lester believes, is urgent.
"This is not a vehicle for attacking or demonising communities. This is a bill that would never get anywhere without the support of leading British Asians. However, it's time that governments recognised the importance of emerging progressive elements in minority communities and the need to protect them without being intimated by old-style leadership - usually male. Liberalism and multiculturalism is no excuse for allowing abuses to carry on."
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