Post date: Jun 08, 2012 4:20:47 PM
LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (JUNE 8, 2012)(UK POOL) - Parents who force their children into marriage will face jail under a new British law that will make it a criminal offence.
Forced marriage is to become a criminal offence in Britain.
Visiting the Forced Marriage Unit in London on Thursday (June 8), British Prime Minister David Cameron described the practice as "abhorrent" and "little short of slavery"."You're taking 15, 16-year-old British citizens, taking them off to another country against their will, marrying them with someone against their will, that is a crime and it should be a crime."
He said there had been a tendency in the past to treat the issue as something cultural.
"For too long in this country, we've sort of thought 'well, it's a cultural practice and we just have to run with it'. We don't, it's a crime. Listen to the stories of these women and what they've been through and how painful and difficult it was to be rescued and you know this should be a crime and treated as such by this country," Cameron said.
The British government says it will invest more than half a million pounds on the issue over the next three years to train teachers and social workers, help victims and raise awareness.
But, Cameron warned, anybody caught trying to force someone into marriage against their will could end up in jail.
"As far as I'm concerned, if you commit that sort of offence, you should get a very, very tough punishment," the prime minister said.
The Forced Marriage Unit says it has provided advice and support to nearly 600 people in the first five months of this year. It says 85% of the cases it deals with involve women and 15% involve men.