A jury at Birmingham Crown Court has found a mother guilty of deceiving her daughter to go to Pakistan in order to forcibly get her married to a man 16 years her senior. She was also convicted of perjury after she lied about the incident in the High Court.
The teenager was duped by her mother into marrying the relative just after her 18th birthday when her mother convinced her she was going on a family holiday to Pakistan, where the ceremony is said to have taken place. In the first successful prosecution of its type, the jurors heard how the girl had cried and pleaded to her mother after signing a marriage certificate. Although forced marriage became an offence in 2014, prosecutions for it are rare.
Few years ago, this girl had to undergo an abortion when she was 13, after becoming pregnant by a male relative whom she was forced to enter into a 'marriage contract' with against her will. Post abortion, the teenager resorted to alcohol and drugs, because when she protested the marriage, the mother assaulted her and threatened to burn her passport. According to the Prosecutors, the defendant "made all the right noises" to suggest her daughter and the man were just "two teenagers who had sneakily had sex" when she was referred to social services.
