Forced marriage

[2] Though now widely condemned by international opinion, forced marriages still take place in various cultures across the world, particularly in parts of South Asia and Africa.

[4][5] The United Nations views forced marriage as a form of human rights abuse, since it violates the principle of the freedom and autonomy of individuals.

[9] In 2009, the Special Court for Sierra Leone's (SCSL) Appeals Chamber found the abduction and confinement of women for "forced marriage" in war to be a new crime against humanity (AFRC decision).

[10][11] The SCSL Trial Chamber in the Charles Taylor decision found that the term 'forced marriage' should be avoided and rather described the practice in war as 'conjugal slavery' (2012).

[26] Among the last European countries to establish full gender equality in marriage were Switzerland,[27][28] Greece,[29] Spain,[30] the Netherlands,[31] and France[32][33] and the paternal authority of a man over his family was ended in 1970,[34] it was only in 1985 that a legal reform abolished the stipulation that the husband had the sole power to administer the children's property.

[39] In Western countries, during the past decades, the nature of marriage—especially with regard to the importance of marital procreation and the ease of divorce—has changed dramatically, which has led to less social and familial pressure to get married, providing more freedom of choice concerning choosing a spouse.

Generally, the village chief or a senior leader of the community would approach both parties and inform them that they were to be married and the time and place the marriage would occur.

Reasons for performing forced marriages include: strengthening extended family links; controlling unwanted behavior and sexuality; preventing 'unsuitable' relationships; protecting and abiding by cultural values; keeping the wealth in the extended family; dealing with the consequences of pregnancy out of wedlock; considering the contracting of a marriage as the duty of the parents; obtaining a guarantee against poverty; aiding immigration.

Marriage by abduction has been practiced throughout history around the world and continues to occur in some countries today, particularly in Central Asia, the Caucasus and parts of Africa.

Some religions and cultures consider it a moral imperative to marry in such a situation, based on reasoning that premarital sex or out-of-wedlock births are sinful, not sanctioned by law, or otherwise stigmatized.

[clarification needed] It is based on a hyperbolic scenario in which the pregnant (or sometimes only "deflowered") woman's father resorts to coercion (such as threatening with a shotgun) to ensure that the male partner who caused the pregnancy goes through with it, sometimes even following the man to the altar to prevent his escape.

The use of violent coercion to marry was never legal in the United States, although many anecdotal stories and folk songs record instances of such intimidation in the 18th and 19th centuries.

[118] In the United States, Unchained At Last is the only nonprofit organization operating to help people in the U.S. escape forced or arranged marriages by providing free legal and social services.

Thousands of people in Somalia circulated a petition against the bill, including representatives of the Mogadishu-based Elman Peace and Human Rights Center.

[145] The practice received negative publicity, with media reporting in 2009 that more than 20 Eastern Cape girls are forced to drop out of school every month because of ukuthwala.

[149] In 2016, during a feast ending the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the Gambian President Yahya Jammeh announced that child and forced marriages were banned.

[152] A report by Human Rights Watch found that about 95% of girls and 50% of adult women imprisoned in Afghanistan were in jail on charges of the "moral crimes" of "running away" from home or zina.

Obtaining a divorce without the consent of the husband is nearly impossible in Afghanistan, and women attempting a de facto separation risk being imprisoned for "running away".

The Human Rights Watch report stated that: According to the UN, as of 2008, 70 to 80 percent of marriages in Afghanistan were forced, taking place without full and free consent or under duress.

[171] In June 2012, the British Government, under Prime Minister David Cameron, declared that forced marriage would become a criminal offence in the United Kingdom.

[191] In November 2014, UCL held an event, Forced Marriage: The Real Disgrace, where the award-winning documentary Honor Diaries was shown, and a panel, including Jasvinder Sanghera CBE (Founder of Karma Nirvana), Seema Malhotra MP (Labour Shadow Minister for Women), and Dr Reefat Drabu (former Assistant General Secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain), discussed the concept of izzat (honour), recent changes in British law, barriers to tackling forced marriage, and reasons to be hopeful of positive change.

[198] According to Nancie L Katz, thousands of Pakistani girls have been flown out of the New York City area to Pakistan to undergo forced marriages; those who resist are threatened and coerced.

[199] The AHA Foundation commissioned a study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice to research the incidence of forced marriage in New York City.

[clarification needed][201] However, AHA Foundation for the past 11 years has operated a helpline that successfully referred numerous individuals seeking help in fleeing or avoiding a forced marriage to qualified service providers and law enforcement.

[204] The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) has been suspected of trafficking underage girls across state lines, as well as across the US–Canada[205] and US–Mexico borders,[206] for the purpose of sometimes involuntary plural marriage and sexual abuse.

[207] The FLDS is suspected by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police of having trafficked more than 30 under-age girls from Canada to the United States between the late 1990s and 2006 to be entered into polygamous marriages.

[211] In 2024, Sakina Muhammad Jan, a Hazara woman from Shepparton, became the first person to be jailed under Australia's forced marriage laws after ordering her 21-year-old daughter Ruqia Hadari to marry a man who later murdered her.

[218][219] She feared being married off to a "more suitable" man,[213] As he was afraid they would be mistreated if sent to live with the brothers' family,[218] Al-Timani later gained custody of their daughter, but was repeatedly detained and warned not to talk to the media.

[219] He said the first instance court had not asked the couple for its side of the story, that sharia law did not use tribal affiliation as a requirement for marriage, and that the brothers brought the case as part of an inheritance dispute.

[218] After King Salman asked the Supreme Court of Saudi Arabia, which did not exist at the time of the initial decision, to review the case, lawyers submitted arguments about al-Timani's tribal background.