Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the total number of (1) British nationals under the age of 16, and (2) British nationals aged 16–17, sent abroad in 2016 in order to enter into a forced marriage.

The UK is a world-leader in the fight to stamp out the brutal practice of forced marriage, with our joint Home Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office Forced Marriage Unit (FMU) which leads efforts to combat it both at home and abroad. We made forced marriage a criminal offence in 2014 to better protect victims and send a clear message that this abhorrent practice is totally unacceptable and will not be tolerated in the UK.

The FMU publishes statistics annually. The most recent statistics, published on 8 March 2016, show that the FMU gave advice or support related to a possible forced marriage in 1,220 cases. A breakdown shows that the FMU gave advice and support to 174 people between the ages of 1-15 and 155 people aged 16-17. A further breakdown of this information would incur a disproportionate cost.

Statistics for 2016 will be published in due course.