Forced Marriage
Marlene Moses and Manuel Russ, September 2014
Forced marriages may seem to be a remote problem in other parts of the world but marriages with an unwilling participant are more pervasive than anyone would suspect. With the continued support of government and social services, more victims will be able to come forward and, in time, this practice may be drastically reduced.
Forced Marriage: What should the legal response be?
Anne-Marie Hutchinson, April 2013
Anne-Marie Hutchinson, IAML Fellow and international force of nature in her advocacy of human rights for women and children wrote this paper in 2013. The paper is a thoughtful and considered examination of the proper response to the issue of forced marriage by governmental entities. A forced marriage is a marriage in which one or both parties to the marriage do not have the capacity to consent to marriage due to age or mental capacity. The force may be as simple as brute force or as complex as family obligations and obedience to parental dictates. Just making participating in such a marriage a crime will not solve the problem in our communities. Education and civil protection orders together with the resources to provide actual protection to the intended victims is seen as the critical best practice.
