Forced marriage: “I was enslaved by my husband’s family”

In the UK, forced marriage was made illegal in 2014 under the National Anti-Social Behavior, Crime and Police Surveillance Act. He could face a sentence of up to seven years in prison.

Statistics from the Crown Prosecution Service for England and Wales indicate that last year there were 30 prosecutions for this offence, resulting in 16 convictions.

But charities such as Karma Nirvana, which helps women affected by forced marriages in the UK, say the number of prosecutions does not reflect the true number of victims.

Karma Nirvana is a non-profit entity founded in Derby, England. It claims to have received 624 calls to its helpline in 2024.

This number is almost triple the 229 calls recorded by the UK Home Office’s Forced Marriage Unit.

The BBC has changed Sara’s name to protect her identity. He will also not reveal where she was taken in the UK.

It was Sara’s first time in England. She spoke no English and knew very little about the country.

She remembers her family and friends reassuring her that she would have a “better life.” And in recent weeks, the marriage has actually improved.

“But little by little, the restrictions started: ‘Don’t leave the house, don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t work, stay at home,’” Sara recalls.

She emphasizes having heard that she would be raped or murdered by the British if she left her marital home.

“They told me that in the UK I couldn’t leave the house and that if I went out alone I would be raped,” she says. “‘Don’t go out alone, day or night.'”

Suddenly, Sara finds herself living a life of servitude, despite her resistance.

She says her mother-in-law forced her to do household chores and did not allow her to leave the house. She described Sara as a “servant” and a “servant.”

Her situation worsened when her husband became physically abusive. “Sometimes he would throw something at me, push me. Sometimes he would kick me,” she said.

Sara’s situation became even more unbearable when she realized that her husband and his family had turned off her cell phone’s Wi-Fi.

Scared and alone, unable to stay in touch with friends and family in Pakistan, she said she found the courage to ask her husband why she didn’t have wireless Internet.

The consequences were devastating. She reports that he, furious, threw the remote control and TV keys at her, hitting her in the face.

“He grabbed me by the neck. He pushed me against the wall. He hit me three or four times in the head,” she said.

Sara felt asphyxiated and thought she was going to die. And she also remembers how her mother-in-law, who witnessed it all, insisted that she should have kept silent.

“That night, my husband slept near the door so I wouldn’t run away,” she says.

Sara remembers how terrified she was after the attack which she says left her face swollen.

“I don’t know what I did, how I did it, but at six in the morning, after spending the whole night thinking and crying, I called the police,” she says.

Five minutes later, Sara heard the police knocking on the door. She remembers one of them running up the stairs, entering her room and finding her huddled in the corner.

“When he came and saw me, I was shaking a lot,” she said. “I was cold, my heart was beating very fast and my blood pressure dropped.”

Police removed her from the house and took her to a shelter in Leeds, in the north of England. It all happened in December 2022.

Sara’s husband was arrested, but she says she did not want to take any action out of concern for the safety of her family in Pakistan. He was therefore not charged with any crime.

Finally, in July last year, Sara divorced her abusive husband.

She said she did not want to return to Pakistan because, according to her, divorced women are stigmatized in the country. And her worry was being forced into another marriage.

“The problem with family members is that, one way or another, they force you to remarry,” she explains.

Sara now has permanent residence in the UK. She learned English and rebuilt her life in Derbyshire, in central England.

Sara encourages those involved in forced marriages to move on.

“When you have a forced marriage, you ruin each other’s lives,” she says. “It is not only the lives of women that are ruined, but also those of men. We must first think about it, observe and understand.”

Sara is one of many victims of forced marriage living in the UK. There are currently no reliable figures on the number of people affected.

To change this situation, the British Home Office announced that it would carry out a study to assess the frequency of forced marriages in the country and combat cases of violence in which women suffer abuse because they have tarnished the “honour” of the family.

The ministry is working with a team of professors from the UK’s Universities of Nottingham and Birmingham to create a data tool to enable this process.

“We are recommending to the government that there is a need for up-to-date data,” says Professor Helen McCabe, who specializes in political theory at the University of Nottingham.

McCabe says this will be the first prevalence study of its kind in England and Wales and could help determine how many people are affected, whether forced marriages are increasing and how policies could be changed to help reduce them.

“If we don’t know how many people are involved, or if we don’t have baseline data on how many people are involved, we won’t be able to determine whether the police, the Crown Prosecution Service in England and Wales, or any other body should change their practices,” the professor concludes.

The study is expected to be completed in March.

In a statement, Minister for Protection and Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillips, said: “This Government is introducing changes to laws and other measures to tackle this debilitating form of abuse and set clear guidelines for frontline staff. They must treat these offenses with the seriousness they deserve.

“My message to all those who commit these crimes is simple: we will bring them to justice.”