Forced marriage to be outlawed

New laws are to be introduced by the home secretary to jail parents who force their children to marry.

Theresa May is due to outline how it will be a criminal offence in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland already has a forced marriage law.

Figures from the Home Office Forced Marriage Unit show 1,468 cases were recorded in 2011.

However, experts say that is a tiny fraction of the actual numbers in the UK.

Statistics  also illustrate that more than half of the people involved in suspected cases of forced marriage originate from south Asia: Pakistan (46%), Bangladesh (9.2%), UK (8.7%) and India (7.2%).

The new law is expected to distinguish between forced marriages where there is no consent and arranged marriages.

A Home Office consultation, which ended in March, was launched at the request of Prime Minister David Cameron, who has said forced marriage is "little more than slavery" and "completely wrong".