A boy as young as eight is among scores of children feared by judges to be at risk of forced marriage as official figures reveal police are struggling to bring cases to court.

The schoolboy – thought to be one of the UK’s youngest known potential victims of forced marriage – is among 71 children, teenagers and women in West Yorkshire guarded by special court orders since 2014.

His case came to light as police figures, obtained by the Guardian, showed that only a fraction of investigations into forced marriage result in a prosecution. Many are dropped because victims are too scared to give evidence against their abuser.



In West Yorkshire, five of the 51 cases investigated since June 2014 resulted in a suspect being charged.Thirty-five of these investigations were dropped due to “evidential difficulties”, of which 16 were “victim-based” problems, the figures show.



There was a similar pattern in the West Midlands, where 19 of its 31 investigations resulted in no charges – eight because the victims did not support further action. There has been one conviction so far under a new forced marriage law introduced in June 2014.

In that case, a businessman secretly filmed a devout Muslim woman taking a shower to blackmail her into becoming his second wife.



The 34-year-old from Cardiff was sentenced to 16 years in prison for charges including rape, bigamy, voyeurism and the new offence of forced marriage.

Met Commander Mak Chishty is the national police lead for forced marriage and honour-based violence. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian

The figures have prompted Britain’s most senior Muslim police chief, Commander Mak Chishty, to warn that forced marriage was massively under-reported as he urged members of the Muslim community to “no longer deny” its existence and come forward.

In an interview with the Guardian, Chishty said: “My message to the community and to victims is I recognise it’s under-reported, I recognise it’s going on. I need you – through friends, family, teachers – to come and tell me and my colleagues in policing so we can help.

“I also appeal to the wider community to say actually this practice is out of date, it is abuse and it must be stopped. That doesn’t mean not practising your religion, this means conforming with human rights.”

Chishty, who is the national police lead for forced marriage and honour-based violence, urged the Muslim community to help “eradicate this form of abuse through education, through a practice where they no longer deny it but accept it’s taking place and counter it together”.

“It’s not about disrespecting any culture – I myself am from a Muslim Pakistani background – but this is about a human being, their human values, their human rights and us being able to protect them.”

Aneeta Prem, the founder of the Freedom charity, which supports forced marriage victims, described as “horrendous” the need for courts to step in to protect boys and girls as young as eight. “It’s child abuse and it’s sexual abuse and we’ve got to stamp it out and not be afraid to talk about it,” she said.



The criminalisation of forced marriage – under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 – was designed to give victims the confidence to come forward and protect thousands of people each year.

Of the seven forces that supplied figures under the Freedom of Information Act, West Yorkshire had launched the highest number of investigations into forced marriage with 51, ahead of 31 in the West Midlands, seven in Greater Manchester and five in South Yorkshire. Britain’s biggest police force, the Metropolitan police in London, refused to supply figures on cost grounds.

Courts have granted as many as 800 forced marriage protection orders in England and Wales since 2014, resulting in the prevention of some victims being taken out of the country by their relatives.

However, campaigners believe many of these cases should result in criminal prosecutions.

Prem said: “If someone’s got the courage to come forward and report a forced marriage and get a forced marriage protection order, that should follow through to prosecution if that’s what’s needed to protect the most vulnerable in society.



“The police are doing a lot of work to get that many [forced marriage protection] orders out, so that’s very positive, but how many are leading to prosecution? Zero.”

There is little evidence that the problem is on the wane. Karma Nirvana, a charity that supports victims, said its helpline dealt with more than 6,700 calls about forced marriage and honour-based violence last year, with its busiest months during the school holidays.

Last year, the charity came across 190 pregnant victims of forced marriage, of which seven were aged under 15. In a two-month period at the end of last year, teachers referred 36 students to its helpline from 14 schools, including 11 from one school in Birmingham the day after the charity gave a presentation.

ChildLine said it handled a 30% increase in calls about forced marriage last year, more than half of which were from children aged 15 or under with some as young as nine.



The government’s forced marriage unit dealt with 1,220 cases last year, a figure that has been in steady decline since 2009.

More than a fifth of these cases were in London, according to government figures released last month, with the West Midlands accounting for 14% and the north-west of England 10% of forced marriage cases.

Nearly half of the calls – 44% – to the government helpline involved forced marriages in Pakistan, but 14% concerned cases within the UK.

Natasha Rattu, Kama Nirvana’s head of learning who trains police forces across England and Wales on how to spot the signs of forced marriage, said not all forces were well-equipped to tackle the problem.

“It’s a postcode lottery. You get areas that do very well and others that don’t. There’s a degree of ignorance and uncertainty about how to deal with it. Some officers fear being perceived as racist or politically incorrect,” she said.

“We have this fantastic legislation but not all officers are aware of it. We know from our national helpline that some of the force areas that appeared in the HMIC [Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary] report to be prepared, are not so prepared in reality.”

Rattu said police should consider where it would be appropriate to bring victimless prosecutions, where cases are brought to court even if the victim withdraws the complaint or does not wish to give evidence.





DS Darren Minton, of West Yorkshire police, said forced marriage was a priority for the force and that it was encouraging that more people had come forward over the last year.



He added: “In these types of cases, the views of the victim are taken seriously as to whether to prosecute and can ultimately be a deciding factor. We often see that victims do not want to prosecute their family, but our aim is to make sure the victim has the necessary support and above all, is safe.”

A Home Office spokesman said: “We made forced marriage a criminal offence in 2014 and we are encouraged by the first conviction secured in June last year, but there is still work to be done. We are committed to ensuring that victims have the confidence to come forward, which is why, following consultation with partners, we will look to bring forward legislation to afford victims of forced marriage the same lifelong anonymity we have introduced for victims of FGM [female genital mutilation].

“We will continue to work with the police and Crown Prosecution Service to review implementation of the offence and lead efforts to tackle this abhorrent crime.”



• This article was amended on 20 April 2016. An earlier version said: “The vast majority – 44% – of calls to the government helpline involved forced marriages in Pakistan”. This has been corrected to say that 44% is nearly half of the calls.