Another tragic case of forced marriage
Sadly I see cases like this all the time. Forced marriage is big business. The last time I was in India (officially) I was inundated with marriage offers. I said no to them all. What they wanted to do was get their daughter to marry a UK citizen.
If you marry a UK citizen then it’s really easy to become one yourself. Then you get all sorts of social security and send money back home. The buying power of the UK pound is something like 50 times that of the Indian Rupee so your family can live like kings courtesy of the UK taxpayer.
I have helped many girls escape forced marriage because it’s big business. All the religious texts forbid forced marriage but it still goes on.
To the credit of the UK government, our government has led the world in fighting forced marriage, and cases like this encourage me to redouble my efforts through parliamentary petitions and the like to get rid of the practice.
The UK government recently made it law raising the minimum age for marriage to 18. However, they can still force such marriages for example saying “Marry this person or we won’t finance you at university.”
If I had my way if there is an age gap of more than 10 years then the younger one must be at least 25. I know someone who, at the age of 18 was forced to marry a man who is 66. If we had such legislation such a case could not happen.
The fight must continue.
Bibliography
- Sara Sharif’s dad arrested after flying to UK from Pakistan 34 days after body found https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1812448/Sara-Sharif-murder-parents-return-UK-flee-Pakistan
