Forced Marriage and Students: a Staffordshire University and Karma Nirvana Collaboration.

Forced marriage is increasingly becoming a subject of public concern, and the immanent criminalisation is likely to highlight the issue further. The Home Office Consultation Forced Marriage a Consultation (HMSO 2011) and its response’s (HMSO 2012) have identified the problem clearly. Most of the focus has been on school children and their disappearance over the summer months. There is clear evidence that Forced Marriage Protection Orders’ have not been as effective as had been hoped with weak monitoring and enforcement. This is also true for young adults at University where monitoring is even more difficult. At Staffordshire University we have conducted a small scale research project as to the extent of the problem within the Law School student population, and it was an issue for significant numbers of our students both male and female. We are in the process of working with Karma Nirvana to pool both the University’s cross faculty expertise and the knowledge and experience of the leading NGO in the area, to develop best practice and consistency of practice, building on the Multi Agency Practice Guidelines (HMSO 2013).This paper looks at the background to our research and the early findings.