Forced marriage cases dealt with by an official outreach unit jumped 47% in a year, fresh figures have revealed, as high-profile cases raised awareness of the crime.

A forced marriage is defined as one in which one or both spouses do not or cannot consent to the marriage, and violence, threats, or any other form of coercion is involved, and is a criminal offence.

The Forced Marriage Unit (FMU), a joint Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and Home Office unit which leads on the government’s forced marriage policy, outreach and casework, gave advice or support related to a forced marriage in 1,764 cases in 2018, up 568 cases or 47% on 2017, an annual report shows.

The sharp increase does not “necessarily represent” a spike in prevalence, the Home Office said, but rather a greater awareness of forced marriage being a crime, which in turn was driven by media coverage of cases such as the couple convicted for tricking their teenage daughter into travelling to Bangladesh in an attempt to force her to marry her first cousin.

Children aged 15 and under made up 312 or 18% of cases dealt with by the FMU in 2018, while a third of cases related to victims 18 and under, equal to 574 cases, the report revealed. A similar proportion, 542 cases, related to victims aged 18 to 25.

The UK region with the highest number of cases dealt with by the FMU in 2018 was London with 318 or 18% of cases, followed by the north-west with 14% or 254 cases.

The majority of cases – 1,322 or 75% – involved women, although 297 cases or 17% involved men as victims. Gender in the remaining cases was unknown.

The country with the highest number of cases of forced marriage was Pakistan with 769 or 44% of the total, followed by Bangladesh with 157 cases. A total of 119 cases or 7% had no overseas element, with the potential or actual forced marriage taking place entirely within the UK.

But the report stressed that forced marriage was not a problem specific to one country or culture, and since 2011 the FMU has handled cases relating to more than 110 countries across Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and North America.

The report provides information on the number of cases reported to the FMU via its public helpline and email from 1 January to 31 December 2018. The FMU received around 340 telephone calls a month in 2018, although this included repeat calls about cases and calls not about forced marriage, for example, some calls related to divorces, annulments, sham marriages or domestic abuse.

The majority of referrals come from professionals and other third parties, such as NGOs. Victims account for around 20% of callers, which the report said reflected the hidden nature of forced marriage.