A recent Freedom of Information request made by the Press Association has revealed a startling truth about the modern United Kingdom. The request for Britain’s Home Office disclosed that between 2021 and 2025, over one hundred girls aged 11 and younger were believed to be victims of a particular kind of human trafficking, namely forced marriages to older men. This data was based on tips from family, friends, social services workers, and others to the U.K.’s Forced Marriage Unit. The Home Office’s Forced Marriage Unit is a joint Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) organization that specializes in providing support and advice to victims of forced marriages in the U.K. and abroad.
Of the hundreds of victims identified by the Home Office between 2021 and 2025, 27 were girls under the age of five, according to a report by the Daily Telegraph. Tips to the Forced Marriage Unit are not necessarily proof or hard evidence, and the U.K. government refused to publicly disclose information for a full year owing to fears that the victims could be identified, targeted, or further abused. However, it seems probable that the U.K. is currently witnessing an increase in forced marriages, with most victims coming from the country’s large South Asian population. According to UNICEF, a girl’s risk of marrying in childhood stands at 30 percent in South Asia, which is down from 50 percent over a decade ago. Currently, Indians, both first-generation immigrants and British-born Indians, make up the largest visible minority group in the United Kingdom, and are approximately three percent of the overall population according to the 2021 UK Census.
Other South Asian ethnic groups, including Muslim Pakistanis and Bengalis and Buddhist Sri Lankans, are also likely represented among the one hundred or so victims.
Dame Jasvinder Sanghera, the founder of the Karma Nirvana charity that works towards raising awareness about forced marriages and honor-based abuse, told the British press that many of the perpetrators hide behind religion or accuse the U.K. authorities of racism whenever charges or accusations are brought. “‘This is our culture. This is our religion. You’re being racist’ or whatever,” Dame Jasvinder reiterated. “They [perpetrators] will try and put you on the back foot…to make you look the other way…”
Dame Jasvinder speaks from experience, as her Sikh parents attempted to force her into an arranged marriage while she was still an adolescent.
Reform Shadow Home Secretary Zia Yusuf, himself of a Sri Lankan Muslim background, placed the blame for the Home Office’s horrific numbers at the feet of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party. “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,” Yusuf said.
The scandal of child marriages is one in a long time of recent sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the United Kingdom. The largest, longest, and most controversial scandal, the Rochdale Grooming Gang case, came to light in 2013 and exposed decades of sexual abuse, prostitution, and human trafficking carried out by predominately Pakistani Muslim gangs targeting native-born white girls. Similar grooming gang cases were found in Telford, Bristol, Huddersfield, and beyond.
So far, the largest single sentence handed down following the exposure of the grooming gang scandals was given to Mohammed Zahid, the accused ringleader of the gang in Rochdale. In October of last year, Zahid was sentenced to 35 years behind bars.
