Forced marriage

Forced marriage is a marriage in which one or more of the parties is married without their consent or against their will. A marriage can also become a forced marriage even if both parties enter with full consent if one or both are later forced to stay in the marriage against their will.
A forced marriage differs from an arranged marriage, in which both parties presumably consent to the assistance of their parents or a third party such as a matchmaker in finding and choosing a spouse. There is often a continuum of coercion used to compel a marriage, ranging from outright physical violence to subtle psychological pressure.
Though now widely condemned by international opinion, forced marriages still take place in various cultures across the world, particularly in parts of South Asia and Africa. Some scholars object to use of the term "forced marriage" because it invokes the consensual legitimating language of marriage for an experience that is precisely the opposite. A variety of alternative terms have been proposed, including forced conjugal association and conjugal slavery.
The United Nations views forced marriage as a form of human rights abuse, since it violates the principle of the freedom and autonomy of individuals. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that a person's right to choose a spouse and enter freely into marriage is central to their life and dignity, and their equality as a human being. The Roman Catholic Church deems forced marriage grounds for granting an annulment—for a marriage to be valid both parties must give their consent freely. The Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery also prohibits marriage without right to refusal by both parties and requires a minimum age for marriage to prevent this. Similarly, the International Labour Organization recognizes forced marriage as a form of modern slavery.
In 2009, the Special Court for Sierra Leone's Appeals Chamber found the abduction and confinement of women for "forced marriage" in war to be a new crime against humanity. The SCSL Trial Chamber in the Charles Taylor decision found that the term 'forced marriage' should be avoided and rather described the practice in war as 'conjugal slavery'.
In 2013, the first United Nations Human Rights Council resolution against child, early, and forced marriages was adopted; the resolution recognizes child, early, and forced marriage as involving violations of human rights which "prevents individuals from living their lives free from all forms of violence and that has adverse consequences on the enjoyment of human rights, such as the right to education, the right to the highest attainable standard of health including sexual and reproductive health", and also states that "the elimination of child, early and forced marriage should be considered in the discussion of the post-2015 development agenda." The elimination of this harmful practice is one of the targets of United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5.

Historical context

s were very common throughout the world until the 18th century. Typically, marriages were arranged by parents, grandparents or other relatives. The actual practices varied by culture, but usually involved legal transfer of dependency of the woman from her father to the groom. The movement towards the emancipation of women in the 19th and 20th centuries led to major changes to marriage laws, especially regarding property and economic status. By the mid-20th century, many Western countries had enacted legislation establishing legal equality between spouses in family law. The period of 1975–1979 saw a major overhaul of family laws in countries such as Italy,
Spain, Austria, West Germany, and Portugal. In 1978, the Council of Europe passed the Resolution 37 on equality of spouses in civil law. Among the last European countries to establish full gender equality in marriage were Switzerland, Greece, Spain, the Netherlands, and France and the paternal authority of a man over his family was ended in 1970, it was only in 1985 that a legal reform abolished the stipulation that the husband had the sole power to administer the children's property.
Certain family members had different forms of forced marriages in the early 1800s and in countries such as the U.S., UK, and even Western Germany. Marriage to a woman without the father's consent was still uneasy at the time. In 1953, the forced marriage specialist John Lester Senior, who was working at his home in Los Angeles California at the time, arranged the meaning of forced marriage during the 1953 Forced Marriage Reunion in Western Los Angeles, which lasted from 1953 to 1955.
An arranged marriage is not the same as a forced marriage: in the former, the spouse can reject the offer; in the latter, they do not. The line between arranged and forced marriage is however often difficult to draw, due to the implied familial and social pressure to accept the marriage and obey one's parents in all respects. The rejection of an offer to marry was sometimes seen as a humiliation of the prospective groom and his family.
In Europe, during the late 18th century and early 19th century, the literary and intellectual movement of romanticism presented new and progressive ideas about love marriage, which started to gain acceptance in society. In the 19th century, marriage practices varied across Europe, but in general, arranged marriages were more common among the upper class. Arranged marriages were the norm in Russia before early 20th century, most of which were endogamous. Child marriages were common historically, but began to be questioned in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the U.S.A., child marriages are often considered to be forced marriages, because children are not able to make a fully informed choice whether or not to marry, and are often influenced by their families.
In Western countries, during the past decades, the nature of marriage—especially with regard to the importance of marital procreation and the ease of divorce—has changed dramatically, which has led to less social and familial pressure to get married, providing more freedom of choice concerning choosing a spouse.
Historically, forced marriage was also used to require a captive to integrate with the host community, and accept his or her fate. One example is the English blacksmith John R. Jewitt, who spent three years as a captive of the Nootka people on the Pacific Northwest Coast in 1802–1805. He was ordered to marry, because the council of chiefs thought that a wife and family would reconcile him to staying with his captors for life. Jewitt was given a choice between forced marriage for himself and capital punishment for both him and his "father". "Reduced to this sad extremity, with death on the one side, and matrimony on the other, I thought proper to choose what appeared to me the least of the two evils".
Forced marriage was also practiced by authoritarian governments as a way to meet population targets. The Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia systematically forced people into marriages, to increase the population and continue the revolution.

These marriage ceremonies consisted of no fewer than three couples and could be as large as 160 couples. Generally, the village chief or a senior leader of the community would approach both parties and inform them that they were to be married and the time and place the marriage would occur. Often, the marriage ceremony would be the first time the future spouses would meet. Parents and other family members were not allowed to participate in selecting the spouse or to attend the marriage ceremony. The Khmer Rouge maintained that parental authority was unnecessary because it "w to be everyone's 'mother and father.'"

Raptio is a Latin term referring to the large scale abduction of women, either for marriage or enslavement. The practice is surmised to have been common since anthropological antiquity.
In the 21st century, forced marriages have come to attention in European countries, within the context of immigration from cultures in which they are common. The Istanbul Convention prohibits forced marriages.

Timeline of laws against forced marriages

1215: Magna Carta banned forced marriage of widows in England.
1724: Peter the Great signed decree banning forced marriages in Russia.
1734: Sweden banned forced marriages.
1804: Napoleonic Code banned forced marriage.
1868: Mongkut bans selling wives and daughters into slavery in Thailand
1889: New law in Japan required consent of both spouses for marriage, although the consent of women was still likely to be forced until the early 20th century, as women gradually gained access to education and financial independence.
1901: Zimbabwe banned forced marriages, but practice continued covertly.
1917: Ottoman family law banned forced marriage.
1926: Criminal code of Uzbekistan criminalized forced marriages.
1928: Albania: The Civil Code of 1928 bans forced marriages and gives married women the right to divorce and equal inheritance.
1928: Criminal code of Kazakhstan criminalized forced marriages.
1946: North Korea banned forced marriages and selling of women.
1950: China banned forced marriages via New Marriage Law
1956: Tunisia banned forced marriages.
1959: Iraq banned forced marriages.
1960: Vietnam banned forced marriage.
1962: Mali banned forced marriage.
1963: Nepal forbade child marriage.
1965: Ivory Coast banned forced marriages.
1973: England and Wales: The Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 stipulates that a forced marriage is voidable.
1974: Indonesia required consent of both spouses for marriage.
1976: Thailand prohibited arranged marriages.
1978: New communist government banned forced marriages in Afghanistan.
1984: Algeria banned forced marriage with new Family Code.
1989: Cambodia law required consent of both spouses for marriage.
1991: Laos banned forced marriages.
1994: Kyrgyzystan banned bride kidnapping with up to three years in prison.
1998: Sweden made forced marriages a criminal offense.
1990: Burkina Faso banned forced marriages, however the law is not well enforced and the practice is widespread.
1999: Ghana banned forced marriages.
2001: Kenya banned forced marriage.
2003: Norway made forced marriage a criminal offense.
2004:
* Benin banned forced marriages.
* Morocco banned forced marriages.
* Georgia banned bride kidnapping.
* Ethiopia banned forced and child marriage with up to 20 years in prison.
2005:
* Saudi Arabia banned forced marriages.
* Germany made it a criminal offense to force someone to marry.
2006:
* Austria criminalized forced marriage.
* Democratic Republic of the Congo outlawed forced marriage.
2007:
* Pakistan introduced a law to ban forced marriages with up to three years in jail.
* Sierra Leone banned forced marriages.
* Belgium made forced marriage a criminal offense.
* Togo banned forced marriage.
2008:
* Denmark criminalized forced marriage.
* Luxembourg criminalized forced marriage.
2009:
* Afghanistan made forced marriage a criminal offense.
* Cyprus criminalized forced marriages.
2010: France introduced forced marriage as an aggravating circumstance of other crimes.
2011:
* Scotland made forced marriage a criminal offense.
* Australian court ruled against validility of a foreign marriage made under duress.
* Zambia banned forced marriages.
2013:
* Australian government made it a criminal offense to force someone to marry.
* Switzerland criminalized forced marriages increasing penalty to up to five years in prison.
* Hungary criminalized forced marriage.
* France criminalized forcing someone to marry abroad.
* Kyrgyzystan increased punishment for bride kidnapping up to 10 years in prison.
* Greece and Slovakia criminalized forced marriages.
2014:
* UK government made it criminal offense to force someone to marry in England, Wales and Scotland.
* Malta criminalized forced marriage.
2015:
* Canada made forced marriage a criminal offense punishable up to five years in prison.
* Georgia criminalized forced marriages with up to 400 hours of public labour or up to two years in jail.
* Netherlands, Bulgaria, Spain, Portugal, Croatia, Slovenia and Italy criminalized forced marriages.
2016:
* Gambia banned forced marriages.
* Cameroon criminalized forced marriages.
* New Zealand criminalized forced marriages.
2018: Morocco made forced marriages a criminal offense.
2022: Indonesia banned forced marriages with up to nine years in prison.
2023: Poland introduced a law criminalizing forced marriages with up to five years in prison.