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Written question asked by Tulip Siddiq (Labour) on Monday, 19 February 2018, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 21 February 2018. It was answered by Harriett Baldwin (Conservative) on Tuesday, 27 February 2018 on behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Forced Marriage Unit

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, which countries have been involved in cases reported to the Forced Marriage Unit since 2010; and how many cases have been reported for each such country.

Answer

​The Forced Marriage Unit supports victims in the UK, and through our network of Embassies and High Commissions, British victims overseas. Since 2005, the Forced Marriage Unit has supported cases linked to over 90 countries. Forced Marriage Unit records the focus country as where marriage is due to take place regardless of where the victim is at the time of first contact.

Between 2010-16 Forced Marriage Unit handled 9,618 cases linked to over 85 countries. During this period the top five overseas focus countries were Pakistan 4,714 (49 per cent of cases), Bangladesh 884 (9.2 per cent), India 736 (7.7 per cent), Afghanistan 212 (2.2 per cent) and Somalia 181 (1.9 per cent). There were 1049 cases (10.9 per cent) where there was no overseas element, for example the risk was in the UK. In 772 cases (8 per cent) the focus country was unknown.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
128407
Session
2017-19
Transferred
Yes
Subjects
Forced Marriage Unit
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk