My Lords, in moving Amendment 5 I also speak to Amendment 10; both are in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece. Amendment 5 would place a duty on the Secretary of State to prepare and publish guidance about the consequences of forced marriage and breaching a forced marriage protection order. We all agree that criminalisation, whether through criminalisation of a breach of a forced marriage protection order or through direct criminalisation, is not enough to tackle forced marriage alone. The previous Government recognised this and that all the authorities which come into contact with victims of forced marriage—schools, colleges, the police, doctors and health services, social services, local authorities, airport staff, FCO staff and the courts—must be aware of forced marriage, how it manifests itself, what to look for and, most importantly, the appropriate action that needs to be taken.
For example, in August this year, the Government issued a warning to teachers, doctors and airport staff to be alert to forced marriages over the summer holidays. Between June and August, the Forced Marriage Unit—a joint operation between the Home Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office—received over 400 reports. This year the unit handed out leaflet cards called Marriage: It’s Your Choice, to provide help and information to potential victims, signposting them to
confidential advice. The cards reminded young people to speak to police or airline staff if they found themselves at an airport with nowhere to turn. That is an important initiative. Of course, it referred them to the Forced Marriage Unit, which was set up in January 2005 as the Government’s one-stop shop for dealing with forced marriage policy, outreach and casework. It does an excellent job, operating both inside the UK, where support is provided to any individual, and overseas, where consular assistance is to be provided to British nationals, including dual nationals. I pay tribute to my noble and learned friend Lady Scotland and other noble Lords who set up this important initiative.
However, we need to look at what has happened since that time. We must recognise that, if we look at the evidence, the action we want to be taken throughout all those authorities and public bodies is certainly not uniform or adequate. We can look, for example, at the evidence that Karma Nirvana and the Southall Black Sisters gave during Committee in the Commons. Karma Nirvana’s evidence showed that little had changed in schools since 2008, and that schools were often reluctant to participate in the charity’s work on forced marriage, for example. Other evidence confirms that schools do very little to ensure that pupils are informed about forced marriage and to offer them the necessary support if they need it. There was even evidence that some schools were putting students at risk by contacting family members when children had consulted teachers in confidence.
Southall Black Sisters said in its evidence:
“Our experience shows that the education system has been the slowest to respond to the need to address forced marriage. There needs to be considerable attention on increasing awareness and creating monitoring mechanisms for all forms of gender-related violence and equality issues in schools … We are of the view that heads of secondary schools and further education colleges have an obligation to provide clear and well publicised information on a range of gender-related violence issues”,
which includes forced marriage,
“and Ofsted has an important role to play in monitoring how these issues are addressed”.
I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some information that will help to reassure us that this will happen and that it will have teeth. However, in addition to that evidence, in 2011 the Home Affairs Select Committee wrote to the Secretary of State for Education to express its concerns about this matter. I am sorry to say that the Secretary of State rejected its views and said that he did not believe that his department should be directive or prescriptive to schools on this matter. Does the Minister think that that is satisfactory, on a matter of child protection that lies at the heart of forced marriage for young people?
There have now been two Select Committee inquiries and the Forced Marriage Unit report, and still the Department of Education does not treat forced marriage as a child protection issue in many schools—a reason why this amendment is so important. We have to recognise that the voluntary sector is doing an excellent job in trying to remedy this situation. I know that were he here, my noble friend Lord Harris would tell us about the organisation he chairs, the Freedom Charity, which first and foremost wants to protect the lives of children and young people by raising awareness of
forced marriage in the UK and the associated problems of dishonour-based violence, giving young people the tools and confidence to deal with the problem. The charity plays a vital role in spreading the word and helping to prevent forced marriage, and runs the country’s first 24-hour, seven-days-a-week helpline to raise awareness and prevent abuse. It should be commended for the work it does. However, we have to accept that it is almost certainly not enough.
My second point, which I will raise very briefly with the Minister on this matter, is on whether and how legal aid will be available to victims of forced marriage when they come forward. Again, many of the organisations that deal with forced marriage have raised that as a concern. Statutory agencies have a legal duty to ensure that safeguarding policies and practices are implemented, and that is what lies at the heart of this amendment. I beg to move.
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