The legal age of marriage in England and Wales has just been raised to eighteen. Prior to this it was sixteen, so long as parental consent was given. This law, which will receive Royal Assent this week, comes in a bid to protect Muslim girls from being forced into marriage, and it will also apply to any girls taken out of the UK in order to be married abroad. “The new law also applies to cultural or religious marriages that are not registered with the local council…but it will not affect the validity of any marriages or civil partnerships that happened before the legislation comes into force.”
The legal system in the UK comes out to make these kinds of noises about safeguarding every few years or so. Back in 2019, I wrote about the controversy with regard to West Midlands Police tweeting that it’s not always in a child’s best interests to prosecute parents who have had them genitally mutilated. There had been a drive put out by the same police force, which came on the heels of a TV drama depicting FGM, urging anyone at risk to contact the police, with assurances that every case would be prosecuted and people punished. As usual, they deleted their tweet after much public outrage and questioning as to their logic and methodology. Finally, the Police & Crime Commissioner had to take to the airwaves to tell us that just because there had only been seven arrests (no convictions or charges) made in relation to 113 girls having been mutilated, this doesn’t mean that no action had been taken. He went on to stress that education is key, while ignoring the fact that physical abuse does not come without attendant psychological and emotional abuse. The entire force came across as being clueless as to the scope and the complexities of what they were dealing with.
It’s more of the same again with this new marriage law, and I would argue that Muslims already know what they’re doing is contrary to UK law, and it’s not educating that they need, it’s lessons in obedience. You’d imagine any laws protecting women and girls under the blanket of UK law would be welcome in Muslim communities, but as we have seen with the Somali communities from Wales to Bristol, the women are coming out and complaining that they feel stigmatised and shamed because of the efforts of midwives and nurses in their bid to urge anyone in their family or community to come forward, even though FGM is commonplace for their households. You can’t win with some Muslims. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Wherever Islam settles, action must be taken in order to ensure girls are protected, and this new law is one more effort by the UK government to try to stamp some kind of authority on an ideology that respects no laws but its own. Time will tell if the powers that be do indeed have the courage to hand out the maximum jail term of seven years to any parent or guardian who forces a girl under the age of eighteen into marriage, or whether the prosecutions (or lack thereof) will be reflective of the FGM fiasco which has completely fallen off the radar. Time will also tell if this new safeguarding law is one that Muslim women welcome.
