British government data has revealed that at least 100 children under the age of twelve have been identified over five years as likely to have been subjected to a forced marriage, which opponents have tied to mass migration.
A Freedom of Information request for Home Office figures made by the Press Association has disclosed that between 2021 and 2025, the Forced Marriage Unit received tips from family, friends, police, teachers, and social services of at least 100 girls 11-years-old or younger who were believed to be forced into getting married.
Of those identified, 27 of the girls were said to have been under the age of five when they were being set up for a forced marriage, The Telegraph reported.
While the data is obviously limited to cases in which tips were placed to the Forced Marriage Unit — which in and of themselves do not constitute definitive proof — it is also the case that the government does not always disclose data surrounding child marriage for fear of leading to the public identification of victims.
Indeed, according to the report, during one of the years between 2021 and 2025, there were fewer than five potential victims within each defined age bracket, and therefore the Home Office declined to disclose the data for the entire year, given that the limited number of entries would potentially make it easier to identify specific victims.
Reform UK Shadow Home Secretary Zia Yusuf attributed to the apparent rise in the number of forced child marriages to PM Boris Johnson’s post-Brexit migration reforms, which saw record waves of migrants flood into the country.
“This sudden rise in forced marriages tracks almost perfectly with the Boriswave, which saw the Tories import four million new people into the UK. The Conservatives will never be forgiven for this complete and utter betrayal,” he said.
The Home Office attempted to downplay the role that immigration may have played, with a spokesman saying that forced marriage was “not a problem specific to one country, religion or culture; there is no archetypal victim or perpetrator, and no two cases are the same.”
However, the United Nations Children’s Fund has previously found that certain regions and countries throughout the world are more likely than others to practice forced child marriage.
According to UNICEF, South Asia, including countries like India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, is home to the largest number of child brides in the world, at an estimated 285 million or around 44 per cent of the global total. This is followed by the sub-Saharan Africa region, which now accounts for around 18 per cent of the global total at 115 million.
Dame Jasvinder Sanghera, the founder of the Karma Nirvana charity, which seeks to raise awareness about honour-based abuse and forced marriage, said that perpetrators of forced child marriage often attempt to use their religion or accusations of racism against those seeking to protect girls from such a fate.
“They [perpetrators] will try and put you on the back foot. ‘This is our culture. This is our religion. You’re being racist’ or whatever, to put you on the back foot, to make you look the other way…Cultural acceptance does not mean accepting the unacceptable,” she said.
Dame Jasvinder, whose own Sikh parents had attempted to force her into marrying as a child, has previously noted that the practice is happening within Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh communities.
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