Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government (1) how many, and (2) which, of the commitments made at the Girl Summit 2014 have been met; and (a) what progress has been made, and (b) which countries they have engaged with, to seek to end child, early and forced marriage.

Since the Girl Summit the UK has remained at the forefront of global efforts to eliminate Child, Early and Forced Marriage (CEFM) and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). The UK galvanised international agreement on Sustainable Development Goal Target 5.3 on eliminating harmful practices including CEFM and FGM, by 2030. This has created an international mechanism for tracking global progress.

The UK invested at least £39 million in UN and civil society programmes to end child marriage between 2015 and 2020 and also tackles child marriage through programmes to promote gender equality and girls' education. We have continued to engage and support partner countries in efforts to end CEFM. For example, 11 countries in Africa and South Asia have developed National Action Plans to end child marriage, with support from UK Aid through the UNICEF-UNFPA Global Programme to End Child Marriage. These actions have contributed to a 15% reduction of global prevalence of child marriage over the last decade, averting 25 million child marriages.

The UK's dedicated Forced Marriage Unit continues to lead efforts to combat forced marriage in the UK and provides dedicated support to victims and those at-risk. Since 2008, 2,605 Forced Marriage Protection Orders were issued related to marriages undertaken or planning in the UK and overseas.

The UK continues to lead the world in our support to the Africa-led movement to end FGM. Since 2013, £57.5 million has been invested in programmes to end FGM, which have helped Gambia, Nigeria, Mauritania and Sudan to make the practice illegal, and Burkina Faso, Egypt, and Uganda to strengthen their laws, as well as building "The Girl Generation" which has reached over 200 million people across Africa.