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Child Marriage

Overview

The Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Act 2022 received Royal Assent in April this year. It is planned to come into effect on Monday 27 February 2023.

The Act will raise the age of marriage and civil partnership to 18 in England and Wales to protect children from forced marriage.

This means that 16 to 17-year-olds will no longer be able to marry or enter a civil partnership under any circumstances, including with parental or judicial consent from 26 February 2023. It will not be possible for anyone under 18 to marry or enter a civil partnership after this date.

Key Facts

Currently forced marriage is only an offence if the person uses a type of coercion, for example threats, to cause someone to marry, or if the person lacks capacity to consent to marry under the Mental Capacity Act. The Act will therefore also expand the criminal offence of forced marriage in England and Wales to make it an offence in all circumstances to do anything intended to cause a child to marry before they turn 18. It will therefore now be an offence to cause a child under the age of 18 to enter a marriage in any circumstances, without the need to prove that a form of coercion was used. The forced marriage offence will continue to include ceremonies of marriage which are not legally binding, for example in community or traditional settings.¹

Child marriage is often viewed as a ‘developing world issue’ and one that takes place exclusively overseas. The reality is that child marriage is present in every single area of the UK, including in Sheffield. Since 2017, Karma Nirvana’s national Honour Based Abuse Helpline has responded to over 400 cases relating to child marriage.² It is thought that this doesn’t reflect the true nature of the problem as these are only the cases that have been able to seek support.

In England and Wales up till the change in the law, children have been able to legally register their marriages at 16 and 17 with parental consent. But in some cases, this might have been exploited and used to coerce children and young people into marriage, either from within the family or as a result of wider community coercion. Many children may have been pressured into marriage and in some circumstances, families will normalise marrying under the age of 18, because of traditional community expectations.

For a child marriage to qualify as a forced marriage within existing forced marriage legislation, depends on whether parties are deemed to have consented and had the capacity to consent. The test for capacity to consent is defined under the Mental Capacity Act 2015, and as such, a child’s age is not a standalone factor in determining the lack of capacity to consent. This oversight in forced marriage legislation means that children have had to explicitly report their forced marriage in order to get protection from it.

References

¹ Implementation of the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Act 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

² https://karmanirvana.org.uk/news-item/update-child-marriage-bill/"

Resources

Karma Nirvana Child_Marriage_UK_2020.pdf (pcdn.co)

Marriage And Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Act 2022

Best Practice

If you suspect that a child under 18 has been subjected to or is at risk of child marriage contact the Sheffield Safeguarding hub on 0114 273 4855.

If the young person is 16 years or over they can also be referred for support to the Domestic Abuse Helpline, or, if they have experienced sexual abuse or violence, at any age to the Independent Sexual Violence Advisor service.