Children: Forced Marriage
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Baroness Hayman
Viscount Younger of Leckie
The Forced Marriage Unit is very much a cross-departmental exercise—a joint Home Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office unit that sits within the FCO. Its work overseas is accountable to the FCO and is measured against the consular directorate’s strategic priorities. However, I reassure my noble friend that responsibility for this policy is with Harriett Baldwin, so there is a top of the pyramid for this, which is important for having a cohesive policy.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, as well as paying tribute to Karma Nirvana, will the noble Viscount also pay tribute to the work of Freedom Charity and its founder, Aneeta Prem? It is a small organisation but, within six years, it has visited 120 schools and touched the lives of many young people, boys as well as girls, who need education in this area. This year, it is also working with airport staff to alert them to the signs of people being taken away for forced marriage. Will he take very seriously its suggestion that there ought to be an audit after this summer’s holidays to establish both the extent of the problem and areas where we need to target resources?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
The noble Baroness has made a number of points, and I take her point about having an audit. However, the Forced Marriage Unit now monitors this abhorrent issue very closely. She alluded to the fact that the unit is working very closely with the Border Force. The idea behind the spoon emblem is that children will understand the concept of having a metal spoon they can hide as they are taken forcibly through an airport out of the UK, so that the pinger will go off at security, they will be taken aside on their own and, hopefully, their case will be highlighted.