BBC misinterprets forced marriages estimates

From today, forcing a UK national to marry against their will is a criminal offence as new laws against the practice come into force.

Reporting the development, the BBC's Today programme said that "an estimated 8,000 people are forced into marriages against their will every year"

However this isn't accurate. The figure comes from a 2009 report for the Department for Children, Schools and Families (now the Department for Education).

When we last looked at the issue, we found that the report estimated that between 5,000 and 8,000 forced marriage (FM) cases were encountered by authorities in England. However this does not mean that 8,000 forced marriages took place. As the report states:

"Of the FM cases reported to local organisations, almost two-thirds related to threats of marriage (62%) and just over one-third (38%) related to marriages that had taken place".

The true figure could also be higher. The 2009 report only covered England, and did not attempt to estimate the number of cases that were not brought to the attention of agencies or professionals.

The government in its announcement today instead chose to highlight the 1,300 people given advice or support by its Forced Marriages Unit. However there remains no authoritative source on the total number of UK nationals affected by forced marriages.