Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200
- 209)
TUESDAY 19 FEBRUARY 2008
MS NICOLA
HARWIN, MS
SANDRA HORLEY
AND MS
JASVINDER SANGHERA
Q200 Mr Streeter: No, but I will
be! Nicola, are you spotting a trend for family courts to grant
more child contact to perpetrators of domestic violence, are you
concerned about it and what is the solution?
Ms Harwin: We are spotting a trend.
I am sure that Sandra would agree with me here that there are
more residence and contact orders being given to perpetrators
of domestic abuse. In our survey 66% of our 500 services felt
that family courts and CAFCASS were still not taking adequate
account of safety when making child contact or residence orders.
There is a slight improvement, but largely it is still a problem.
We know that something like 70% of child contact cases in which
CAFCASS intervene and have to write reports actually involve domestic
violence; yet we are still looking at less than 1% of contact
orders being refused. So we have still got an enormous discrepancy
between the presence of domestic violence and how much it is actually
being recognised and dealt with in terms of contact and residence.
Ms Horley: The Family Justice
Council has recommended a cultural change away from "contact
is always the appropriate way forward" to "contact that
is safe and positive for the child is the appropriate way forward"
and Refuge believes that there should be a rebuttable presumption
of no contact with the perpetrator in domestic violence cases,
as in New Zealand.
Q201 Mr Streeter: A second question,
different subject: local area agreements. We touched on that earlier.
They are obviously not working terribly well at the moment. How
could they be improved to deal with domestic violence targets?
Ms Harwin: As I said before, at
the moment local authorities have an option of choosing the two
domestic violence targets as part of the indicators that they
adopt as part of their agreements, which is reducing repeat victimisation
and reducing homicide. While those are laudable, they do not address
all of the other areas of a local authority's responsibility that
should be discharged in relation to domestic abuse. Whether it
is in relation to education, as we talked about earlier, whether
it is in relation to provision of housing and emergency accommodation,
there is a whole raft of support services and information services
even giving information about what services are available. That
is not even there as a requirement now, so we think new and particular
guidance needs to be developed for local authorities in terms
of discharging their responsibilities.
Ms Sanghera: I was at a meeting
yesterday with the Chief Constable of the Police Force to try
and talk about forced marriages, and he said to me forced marriage
is in our local area agreement in terms of tackling it. Great
news. However, what engagement are you doing with the agencies
who are dealing with this? I think there has to be a partnership
working with the voluntary sector as well as the statutory sector
in terms of local area agreements.
Q202 David Davis: Because of the
time, I would like to ask you all a very simple and straightforward
question. Yes or no if you like: should forced marriage be made
a criminal offence and, secondly, should we raise the age of marriage
from 16, as it currently is, to 21?
Ms Sanghera: I actually support
raising the age of consent to 21. However, the caveat for me will
be the prevention and the intervention work with young people.
If we are saying it is a breathing space, they need to know about
the help that is available, so for me it is yes.
Q203 Mrs Cryer: The Forced Marriage
Civil Protection Act that went through Parliament last July actually
comes into force in September. Do you think it is going to have
a positive impact on forced marriages, but what also do you think
about having some form of criminal offence regarding forced marriages
as well? Would you just answer very quickly?
Ms Sanghera: In terms of the impact
of the Forced Marriage Act, the only way it is going to have any
impact is (1) if victims are aware of it, (2) if the judiciary
is trained to understand it and (3) if, again, the voluntary sector
are given the tools and the training to empower and support victims
to apply it and use it. I would also ask the question of how we
are going to monitor it. In terms of a criminal offence, I think
there is a need for a specific criminal offence. In this country
we have an offence against littering in the streets and yet we
do not have a forced marriage criminal offence, and I say that
because forced marriage leads to repeated rapes, et cetera, and
horrific violence. Our victims, when we come across them, who
have been forced into marriage very often they say to us—.
I have not met a victim yet who believes forced marriage is against
the law. They deem themselves to be perpetrators for going against
the families; they do not deem themselves to be victims. There
needs to be a very strong message that this is criminal activity
and also I believe it will give the Police Force the power to
intervene in a different way and give them the idea that they
do have the power of arrest. I know that in some families there
is this for and against argument. There is the argument it will
go under ground, et cetera. There are reasonable voices out there
in the community who want this to be a criminal offence. They
will become stronger, the others will become weaker. I also wholeheartedly
believe, as a victim of a forced marriage, if I believed it was
criminal offence it would have empowered me to go to a teacher
and it would have empowered me to do something. The argument that
it will make it go underground, I can tell you, forced marriage
is underground anyway. It is our job to empower victims to use
the legislation effectively.
Q204 Mrs Cryer: At the moment the
reluctant sponsors only have to be 18 to become such a sponsor,
but there is a government discussion document going round about
putting that age limit up to 21. Do you think that would help
and should those going overseas for a marriage to be required
to register their intention to marry before leaving the UK?
Ms Sanghera: I think they should
register their intention, because it will alert the agencies.
Absolutely. It would alert us. Part of the problem is we are not
aware of where they are going and, once we lose them, they can
get lost. In relation to raising the age of consent, again, yes,
but many victims do not even know they are making an application
to become a reluctant sponsor. They need to know to ask the question
and be able to access that.
Ms Horley: A vital piece of research.
Q205 Chairman: If it takes thirty
seconds.
Ms Horley: Thirty seconds. I know
the Southall Black Sisters oppose this. In Denmark, where the
age has been raised to 24, and in the Netherlands, where it has
been raised to 21, there is little evidence to suggest that this
change has led to a reduction in forced marriages.
Q206 Mr Winnick: Where a person has
been refused abroad by the British High Commission, say on the
Indian Subcontinent, it is quite likely that the sponsors will
go to the local Member of Parliament. Do you think there is a
danger that a Member of Parliament, obviously not deliberately,
far from it, nevertheless, could be a party to helping people
come into this country who obviously should not be allowed to
come in because the marriage is not going to be valid in any proper
way?
Ms Sanghera: Absolutely. The constituent
will present a case and a case with, I am sure, a lot of grief
and sadness, et cetera; so the MP is faced with that constituent
in that situation and will endeavour to support them. I think
what we need (and this is why I say indirectly they can be involved
in it, I do not believe there is the collusion per se direct)
is MPs to be aware of this. There needs to be some guidance written
for MPs around forced marriages and around this sort of collusion
that can go on.
Q207 Mr Winnick: How far are members
of Parliament aware of it? Are you aware of cases where Members
of Parliament have played, obviously unknown to them otherwise
they would not do it, a very negative role in helping people come
into this county who should not be here.
Ms Sanghera: I am sure that would
happen, yes, and also the case in Derby of the young girl who
presented herself to Karma Nirvana, the sixteen year old girl
who said she was being forced into a marriage, quite clearly was
clear about that. She was put into refuge provision and, shortly
after that, the family, who did not report her missing to the
police because normally they do not—this is the difference—went
on a long haul trying to track her down. One of the things they
did was to contact our organisation to harass us. The mother in
the case made it quite clear to me that she was going to see our
local MP and see to it that we were closed down as an organisation.
She did go to see our local MP, our local MP did write to me and
it was a letter that stated, "Jasvinder, I do not understand
why you are not even willing to pass messages to this young girl.
This constituent of mine tells me quite clearly she does not intend
to force her into a marriage." Can I just say that, shortly
after that, this family hired a private investigator? This young
girl was kidnapped from refuge provision in Leicestershire. She
was brought back to Derby under duress, made to call the police.
Thankfully, the intelligence was there and the police responded
in a way where they did not believe her. They rescued her. Eight
arrests were made in that family on the Friday. The mother and
the cousin were both presented before Leicestershire Magistrates'
Court and remanded in prison last year in July.
Q208 Chairman: I am sorry. You need
to bring it to a conclusion.
Ms Sanghera: Just very quickly
because this is key to the new Bill. In November the sentence
was passed, and it was a two-year suspended sentence, where the
judge stated that he did not believe the kidnap was with intent
to force this girl into a marriage.
Q209 Chairman: I am afraid I am going
to have to end this session because we have other witnesses who
are waiting and then we have a Home Secretary coming in after
that. Thank you all very much. I would be most grateful if you
could let us have a note, either singly or jointly, on the issue
of no recourse to public funds, as we have not been able to cover
it, but we are extremely grateful. We could have carried on for
another hour asking you questions.
Ms Horley: Can you have us back!
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