The Home Office has decided a specific law to ban forced marriages in the UK is not needed. It is thought the disadvantages of a new law would outweigh the advantages, and possibly drive the practice of forced marriages underground.
The seemingly ineradicable practice of child marriage in India will face new legal obstacles following a Supreme Court decision requiring marrying couples to register their age and consent with local authorities.
Sending girls overseas for marriage against their will was "tantamount to sexual trafficking" and offenders would be severely punished, the federal Government has warned.
Television viewers in Afghanistan were mesmerised recently by a hard-hitting edition of a TV programme, Corridors, on the privately-run Tolo TV station.
Australian girls as young as 14 have been flown overseas and forced to marry older men in an attempt by their families to protect them from promiscuity and Western influences at home.
Her reprimand comes in the run-up to a government decision about criminalising forced marriages in Germany, after a recommendation from the upper house of parliament on July 8 that the practice be banned.
