Forced Marriage

Baroness Berridge Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Berridge]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the Commonwealth Communiqué’s commitment to eradicate forced marriage is realised, and to assess its inter-relationship with forced conversion.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and I draw attention to my interests as declared in the register.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Lord Bates) (Con)]

The UK was instrumental in ensuring the inclusion of child, early and forced marriage in the Commonwealth communiqué. We deliver our commitments through the Forced Marriage Unit and through our work to end child marriage in developing countries. While there are highly publicised instances of forced marriage and forced conversion, we do not have evidence that this is prevalent at scale. Where it happens, it is context-specific.

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his Answer but, according to the Aurat Foundation, 1,000 Hindu and Christian women and girls are abducted, forcibly converted and married off in Pakistan every year. In India, there are similar allegations of Muslim girls being forcibly converted to Hinduism and married off. Of course, this has also been a feature of Boko Haram’s tactics. Despite the last four communiqués making reference to early, child and forced marriage, none has addressed investigating the interrelationship with forced religious conversion. As chair of the Commonwealth for the next two years, will Her Majesty’s Government commission the necessary research to understand this complex relationship and investigate potential solutions?

[Lord Bates]

I am grateful for my noble friend’s question and I pay tribute to her work with the Commonwealth Initiative for Freedom of Religion and Belief, which has had a significant impact. I draw attention to the very substantial measures on freedom of religion and belief—led by my noble friend Lord Ahmad—that we have already announced, such as a £12 million fund through Aid Connect to look specifically at this. On the specific instance of Pakistan that my noble Friend mentioned, one of the things that we were clear about in Pakistan’s UN review last year was the importance of protecting minority rights and the possible need for an independent commission on such rights. We are doing significant things but we have to be clear that this is not only about the communiqué. The Commonwealth charter talks about the importance of,

“tolerance, respect, understanding, moderation and religious freedom which are essential to the development of free and democratic societies”.

That is why we will continue to hold other states to account and seek to live up to that.