Forced Marriage in UK: 7 Cases a Month
BBC Newsbeat reports:
The government is defending how it deals with forced marriage with one victim saying there is not enough help.
According to new figures seen by Newsbeat, there were 1,735 incidents of potential or actual cases involving British nationals reported to the forced marriage unit (FMU) in 2010.
More than half of the cases dealt with last year by the government's forced marriage unit were related to Pakistan.
Meanwhile, almost a third involved people under the age of 18.
One 15-year-old victim has told Newsbeat that schools and other agencies are not doing enough to help.
The teenager says she was tricked into going to Pakistan by her dad, but she managed to escape days before her wedding to a man twice her age.
Foreign Office minister Jeremy Brown, the minister in joint charge of the UK's forced marriage unit, says he's "sorry" that the victim feels so badly let down.
But he also defended the actions of the British government.
"We try to do what we can," he said. "I am not aware of any other country in the world that does more than Britain in terms of forced marriage."
The 15-year-old victim has been talking about how she risked her life to escape a forced marriage in Pakistan.
She says her father wanted to marry her off to a man 16 years older than her so he could come to live in the UK.
"It was just about the money," she admitted.
"He was literally selling me and he was selling my nationality so I could bring the person back.
"I think it would have been £10,000."
When she refused to marry the man, her father started to beat her.
"He whacked me across the face," she admitted. "Then I started rebelling more, saying, 'No'.
"Then he actually got a glass and scarred my arms.
"He had somebody holding me from behind, one of his servants, and he got a glass and was actually cutting very deep cuts."
Her father then began locking her in her room without food or water for hours on end.
She says she "didn't see any ray of light or hope".
"I thought he might kill me. I just thought I was going to die there in that room."
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