UK wants system to stop forced marriages with NRI women
Thursday, June 16, 2011http://www.indianexpress.com/news/uk-wants-system-to-stop-forced-marriages-with-nri-women/804104/
The UK is keen on turning into a formal mechanism the existing informal arrangement with India to prevent forced marriages of women from the community based there, a British minister said here today.
UK Minister for Equalities and Criminal Information Lynne Featherstone, on a three-day visit to India, said under an informal arrangement, British government tracks women of Indian origin in UK who are brought here for forced marriages.
British courts can issue Forced Marriage Protection Orders to prevent taking women abroad for such marriages.
“We work informally with Indian bureaucracy to find these women and save them. British government is keen to turn it into a formal arrangement,” Featherstone told reporters during an interaction at Indian Women’s Press Corps.
The UK has a Forced Marriage Protection Unit, which has dealt with such cases among Pakistanis, Indians and Bangladeshis, among other communities. A House of Commons panel recently favoured criminalising forced marriages.
