The government’s repayment policy is an extension of its approach to British tourists or other citizens who get in trouble abroad and need help returning to the United Kingdom. People 18 years or older have to reimburse the government.

That age limit came into effect after The Guardian newspaper reported two years ago on a 17-year-old British teenager who sought help at the British embassy in Islamabad to escape a forced marriage in 2014. She had to sign a loan agreement and hand in her British passport before being allowed to return to the United Kingdom, and ultimately was billed more than $1,000, with her passport being held until she paid.

After that, 16 and 17 year olds became exempt from the reimbursement policy.

The Times of London reported on four British women who were each charged roughly $900 for the government’s efforts to free them from a religious institution in Somalia where they said they had been chained, whipped and told they would be held until they married. The women’s families sent them there because they thought the women were too independent.

Ayaan, 24, who had been at the institution for two years, said she signed a loan agreement on the day she was rescued.

“I was left to fend for myself,” she told The Times of London. “The loan has caused so much anxiety.”

Just as the government would not charge a crime victim for investigating a crime, it should not charge women for bringing them back home, said Alison Gardner, an assistant professor of sociology who studies modern slavery at the University of Nottingham. She said a $1,000 debt could be devastating for a young woman whose family has tried to force her to marry and could disown her if she escaped.

“It’s an example of this general policy of pushing costs onto the people who have incurred the misfortune, which drives a cycle of increased vulnerability,” she said.