Campaigners had long said victims should not have to pay Foreign Office for their freedomThe Foreign Office has bowed to public outrage and dropped its requirement for victims of forced marriage to pay sometimes crippling fees to cover the cost of their repatriation. In 2016 the Guardian and the Muslim Women’s Network UK highlighted the practice of requiring victims of forced marriage to pay repatriation costs, highlighting the case of a 17-year-old British girl who arrived at the UK embassy in Islamabad in 2014 seeking help to escape a forced marriage. On Wednesday Hunt said in reply: “I have decided the victims of forced marriage who are helped to return to the UK by the Foreign Office forced marriage repatriation unit will no longer be asked to take out a loan for their repatriation costs.”He said the forced marriage unit was set up in 2005 on the basis that victims constituted a category of exceptionally vulnerable people in need of specific help. “From now none of those who are assisted by the forced marriage unit will have to cover the costs of their repatriation,” Hunt said. Campaigners had said forced marriage was a form of slavery and victims should not be charged to regain their freedom.

Source: The Guardian January 09, 2019 19:31 UTC