Criminalisation of forced marriage 'will push issue underground'

advisor Sameem Ali, was forced to marry in Pakistan for 13 years, says the bill will deter victims from coming forward

Sameem Ali does not believe that government legislation to criminalize forced marriage to work and instead of discouraging victims to come forward because they have to involve your family in court.

"I disagree with that," he said. "I know nobody wants this bill, nor do they want forced marriage. I think it will move forward on the subway."

An adviser working in Moss Side, Manchester, 42-year-old was elected for five years after the formation of a neighborhood association in 2001. "I became a politician because he wanted to make a difference and educate people on forced marriage," she said. "There is already a law in this country criminalizes child abuse, rape, kidnapping and harassment, all of which are elements of forced marriages.

"But the bill will make forced marriage finger pointing their parents. Which young want to do this? For saying these things about your own mother and father, they love it.

"Most marriages occur abroad, away from the law of this country, how this law applies well? There is also the fear that people will be taken in the outside and left there because of the new law. "

She said that the current system of forced marriage protection orders and works many organizations, civil orders, which allows them to confiscate the passport of a person vulnerable to prevent the company UK mother. The burden of proof is lower in civil cases.

"Consultation on forced marriage, most providers said they did not want the law, but not even discussed. People said that forced marriage is wrong and we will criminalize. So now a young person will be forced to marry and then forced to testify against their parents. "

Ali said that since the law was hired to criminalize female genital mutilation in 2005/6, no person has gone to court, as it would have been to involve their parents.

Ali is a victim of a forced marriage, after being chosen to marry a man twice her age in Pakistan 13. Less than a year later, she was pregnant with her first child, born in the United Kingdom. His memoirs, its members, has been published.

She says her parents in the care of the baby and took her in September, saying he wanted to marry her. The alarm bells should have sounded when she said. Beaten daily by her mother taught her to cook and clean. "And if it is not done properly, I would get physically and mentally abused."

His mother regularly hit their toes with a hammer because he was born with them and snuggled her mother wanted to straighten said. "When she was 11, she caught me and cut the skin under my tongue with a knife by saying that I stuttered. Is petrifying. She told me that if I cried, she cut my mouth, so there was no noise.

"My mother calls me ugly, pulled my hair, they called me the" crazy "and insulted me. Yet I knocked on the head and the skin under my tongue. "Two years later, at age 13, was taken to Pakistan for an arranged marriage.

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