Two years later, a court has sentenced her parents to jail on charges of forced marriage, marking only the second conviction of this kind in British history. But within days of arriving in the country, she was told that she was to marry her first cousin. The couple's conviction comes just months after a British woman in Birmingham was jailed for trying to force her 17-year-old daughter to marry a man twice her age in Pakistan. While forced marriage was criminalized four years ago, the case in May marked the first time a person had been convicted under that statute. There have since been several reports suggesting that forced marriages are more widespread than prosecution figures suggest.

Source: Washington Post August 01, 2018 16:43 UTC