Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I declare an interest. As a former judge, I tried cases that contained elements of forced marriage. I strongly support the Bill. I pay tribute to the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Lester and Lord Carlile, with which I entirely agree, as I agree with all the other speeches that have so far been given in this House. I am aware that the Bill is strongly supported by the NSPCC, the diversity sub-committee of the Family Justice Council—the council is chaired by the President of the Family Division, while the sub-committee is chaired by a British Bangladeshi barrister—and the Family Law Bar Association and its diversity sub-committee, as well as several High Court judges. I think it is important to remember—it has already been said several times, but I believe it is worth saying again—that an arranged marriage is a well-known and well-respected way among many communities to safeguard the future of their children and help them to make sensible permanent relationships, so long as it is genuinely consensual. But to require a young person to marry without his—and there are young men in this position as well as young women—or her consent is not only unacceptable, but, as the right reverend Prelate said earlier, is contrary to the beliefs of the major religions of the world, such as Islam or Sikhism. It is also an obvious violation of a person’s human rights. In 2004 I went, at the request of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, to Muzaffarabad, the capital of Jammu and Kashmir, to talk mainly about international child abduction, but also about forced marriages. I met some of the leaders of the communities in Mirpur, from where come a large number of British-born or resident members of the Pakistan community in England. They are actually Kashmiri, not Pakistani. There is, I understand, a practice of marrying within the wider family—to marry one’s cousin—and I was told firmly by the leaders from Mirpur that they were concerned at the number of young people from the United Kingdom who were married to their cousins in Mirpur. They felt that this was often not a consensual arrangement, but they felt unable to take any steps to discourage it. They said that this was an English problem. We may ask: is there really a problem that needs to be dealt with? Today in your Lordships’ House we have heard many speeches to show that there is. It is a problem right across the world; the community leaders from Mirpur were right to say that it is also here in England. We must tackle it. It is not a problem only of the Muslim community, as has been said, and it may occur among Sikhs or Kurds. We heard at the meeting last week about the Kurdish community, where this happens from time to time. It can happen among Christians, Hindus or Jews. It happens, no doubt, within the Arab communities, but we do not usually hear about it. I would say in parenthesis that landowning families in the 18th and 19th centuries in England married their daughters in order to consolidate their land. The noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, told us about the sad position of Juliet. The major problems arise from families originating from the Indian subcontinent, but it is important to remember that they are certainly not confined to them. This issue is a major concern of the NSPCC, and I declare another interest as I am president of another of its appeals, which is just about completed. The NSPCC is involved because forced marriages affect children and young people under 18, as well as adults. The NSPCC has given me an example of a 15 year-old girl, about to take her GCSEs, who wanted to become a doctor. Her sister was married at 16, and her parents were planning to take her to marry the man chosen for her, who lived in the Indian subcontinent, and whom she had never met. They had already booked the flight. How was she to deal with this situation? The parents would not listen to her, and would disown her if she refused. The NSPCC has an Asian child protection helpline, and 10 per cent of the calls in 2004-05 were about forced marriages. Childline, which is now amalgamated with the NSPCC, had 82 calls last year from children about arranged and forced marriages. The main complaint was that parents did not listen to them. The family judges of the High Court deal with cases of children who are abducted by a parent for the purpose of marriage. Forced marriages affect mainly girls and young women, but they affect young men also. One way in which we hear about forced marriages is in cases of honour killings, where a member or members of a family may punish another member for refusing to marry the proposed partner or for choosing to marry someone else. They are often reported in the press. I remember being in Birmingham on one occasion as a judge when the judge who was there with me had a case in the Crown Court of a father who knifed his elder daughter because she refused to marry the man he chose for her and then knifed the younger daughter because she went to the aid of her sister. The tragic thing was that the father did not know that he was doing wrong. And that was in Birmingham, not a remote part of some distant place. There are sad cases told in the family courts by those bringing nullity petitions to end marriages to which they did not consent. Some High Court judges have engaged in a creative use of their inherent jurisdiction to enable them to help these girls. There is a worrying element of domestic violence in some cases, as noble Lords will have already heard. Domestic violence in the family has, as we all know too well, a serious, adverse and long-term effect on the children in the family, and children of these marriages as well as others. I understand that an average of about 300 girls a year go to the police and seek protection from their family who require them to marry. That is a dramatic and tragic step for a girl to take. She is likely to be barred from the family thereafter and live in isolation from the community in which she has been brought up. I pay tribute to the Southall Black Sisters for taking on and looking after so many of the girls who come though their hands. Another question is whether legislation directed at preventing forced marriages will do any good or will it only demonise or stigmatise a community and be ineffective? I was unhappy about the previous proposed legislation which would have created criminal offences. As we have heard, it had little support from NGOs and other organisations which remain extremely concerned about the plight of many young people in this country. But a civil remedy does not have the same coercive force. It is accessible in the county court and it would be relatively easy to make an application to a family judge. The Bill would give a message that could be understood by those communities or individuals who consider they have the right to choose the spouse for their child. Speaking as a former judge, I have to say that one of the attractive features of the communities from the Asian subcontinent is their recognition and acceptance of the rule of law. They are generally law-abiding people and are accustomed to using the courts in family and other disputes. The possibility of litigation if the Bill was law might give the family a breathing space and an opportunity for reflection. Our family judges are experienced in defusing a fraught situation and persuading a settlement. It would be far better to have an injunction or the threat of proceedings and then a family discussion than a trial on attempted murder in the Crown Court. There is also the chance of keeping the family together rather than a tragic and permanent family rift. The Bill provides several remedies, of which the most important is the granting of an injunction, with a power of arrest if the injunction is not obeyed. This is a strong remedy which has been effectively used in domestic violence legislation. Very helpfully, the Bill provides that when a girl is locked in her bedroom at home, for example—I know of such cases—another member of the family or a friend may help her obtain relief by making the application on her behalf if, and only if, the judge gives specific permission. So there will be no unsuitable people making applications about which the girl does not know or to which she does not consent. The Bill makes provision for granting injunctions against other members of the family who take part in the threats or intimidation to force the marriage on the unwilling young person. It also includes forcing a marriage by deceit as well as by intimidation. It provides the interim relief to secure the safety of the young person, pending the hearing before the court. In the view of NGOs, including those from the ethnic minorities, the legislation would not demonise any community and would be very effective both in its use and as a preventive measure. It might be said that to change culture is a slow business and would it do any good as it would take so long. My answer is that one has to start somewhere. There are examples of changing culture in other areas of legislation such as public disapproval of drink-driving in the past 10 years, increased disapproval of smoking and a relatively recent understanding and awareness of the evil of domestic violence. The Bill would be a trigger to move people forward. Does the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 provide protection so that the Bill would be an unnecessary addition to the statute book? With one voice the Family Law Bar Association, the diversity sub-committee of the Family Justice Council and, in particular, Mr Justice Munby from the High Court Family Division advise that it does not give adequate protection. One act of forcing a child or young person to marry would not, I believe, come within the definition of harassment. The county court does not at present have the powers it would have if the Bill were passed. The 1997 Act is also somewhat cumbersome. The Bill is short, to the point and—unusually, perhaps—easy to understand. Perhaps even more importantly, from time to time legislation appropriately fulfils a declaratory or denunciatory role expressing the view of society that certain behaviour not only is unacceptable but requires to be identified as such. An example would be the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985, and I suggest that forced marriages come within this category. I very much hope that the Bill will have a strong preventive element and that leaders in the communities will recognise the law and spread the message that to force a daughter or son to marry someone they do not agree to marry is wrong and is against the law as it is against the principles of the major religions.