Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I support the Private Member’s Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Lester. I thank him for the excellent, expert Bill that he has produced for us and thank the many organisations that have sent us invaluable material and widened the range of knowledge of what is going on in this area. The intolerable abuse that some forced-marriage victims suffer cannot be allowed to continue unchecked in a country which prides itself on its human rights record. I realise that if, as I hope, this Bill becomes law, it will operate, as the noble Lord, Lord Desai, has just pointed out, in that hugely sensitive area of divided religious and cultural racial customs. The Government certainly deserve praise for the steps that they have taken since the whole issue was raised, particularly during the passage of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004. Their consultation results since then have confirmed the mixed views within the communities concerned about the creation of any kind of new offence, but with a very clear majority against creating any new criminal offence. That is why I see this Bill as an appropriate and far from draconian next step. By creating a civil rather than a criminal offence, it fully reflects the victim’s understandable reluctance to harm his or her family, yet it provides some redress for the victim. Where actual violence or psychological harassment is a serious threat, or aiding and abetting or inducing unlawful acts is involved, it gives the judge the power to issue appropriate injunctions. There are other important aspects of the Bill, which should help boost the speed at which it becomes accepted that forced marriages are just not acceptable in this country. As other noble Lords have said, something like 250 to 300 cases each year are known to the Forced Marriage Unit, although Liberty says the number is considerably higher, so there is some urgency. The Bill allows a litigious friend of the victim to bring proceedings, with the judge’s consent as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, just emphasised. Because cases can be brought at county court level, valuable case law will become available to lawyers working at that local level to draw on. In addition, legal aid will be available. We need reassurance on that point, because we hear far too much at the moment about legal aid disappearing into the sand. There will be other benefits. Once on the statute book, the fact that such a law exists will undoubtedly have a deterrent effect on families who might in the past have felt entitled to use the forced-marriage route for their children. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and Articles 3 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights make this move essential. I find it quite ironic that in the many Bills involving children that we have discussed in your Lordships' House, we have constantly referred to the need to ask the views of the children about their own futures and for everything to be done in their best interests. In this case, it is the children who are suffering the most—whether as the children of unhappy forced marriages, or at second or third-generation themselves being recycled at far too young an age into forced marriages with all the misery and suffering that that entails. Any age would be too young, but 12, 13 or 14 is far too young. With this Bill on the statute book, those who are reluctant to involve the law to end the physical and/or psychological violation of their human rights will, once they see others succeed, be much more likely to follow suit in that direction. This is a Bill brought to your Lordships' House by probably the most dedicated and experienced human rights expert in the land. As adviser to Roy Jenkins when he was Home Secretary, the noble Lord, Lord Lester, was the architect of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and Equal Pay Act 1970. Having worked with him in addressing many equal opportunity issues over the years, I have every confidence that it is the right time for this Bill, amended and improved as it inevitably will be in its passage through Parliament. The EOC was set up by the 1975 Act both to enforce the new law and to promote equality of opportunity. As its first deputy chairman under the leadership, at that time, of the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, I am more than aware of the time that it takes to get acceptance of laws that change a nation’s entrenched behaviour. However, although there is still a lot more to be achieved in those areas, I am encouraged by the progress that has been made in this country and indeed across a far wider field in European and other countries on both racial and sexual equal opportunities. I have enough faith to believe that this even more complex cultural misbehaviour will respond to similar treatment. Many will say that we have allowed this situation to continue for far too long already, and that if people from different races, religions and cultural backgrounds choose to live in this country and become British citizens, the basic human rights law of this country must be accepted. We need to be clear, and other noble Lords have stressed this, that we are not talking about what some regard as harmless cultural customs—arranged marriages—where both parties agree and want the marriage to take place. We are talking about an entirely different, brutal custom, often involving extreme mental and physical cruelty. Anyone who has read even some of the detailed stories of the victims who have been so abused, murdered, had to commit suicide, and had their lives destroyed in so many other ways could not but agree that the sooner these practices are obliterated the better. The absence of any law such as this undervalues and undermines the role that women can and do play, as mothers and wives, and as equal citizens contributing to their country’s economic well-being. Above all—and women are some 85 per cent of the victims that we are talking about—the continued toleration of the concept of forced marriage reinforces the view of women as second-class citizens. Frankly, that in itself is intolerable. I hope that everyone, but especially the Government, will now take the necessary steps to end what up to now has been a rather blind-eye policy which, no doubt for understandable but misguided reasons, has been allowed to continue for far too long. By adopting this Bill, the Government can redeem their record, which is already excellent in so many other respects.