The cases that generally get attention are those in which the women end up dead, or grossly physically injured, but the practice also causes enormous psychological injury.
The girl, from Peterborough, was subjected to moral blackmail by her parents who said they would kill themselves if she did not marry the cousin she had never met.
The judge told the High Court in London: “She was kept in a remote part of Pakistan for many months and, despite begging her parents to be allowed to return to this country, she was subjected to unrelenting pressure, initially from her mother and subsequently by her father, as also from other members of the wider family.  “She was subject to continued emotional pressure and moral blackmail, applied over many months,†the judge said. “Her will was overborne.”
Rightly, her marriage has been annulled, but that doesn’t mean she is free, for her solicitor told the court:
“I had to meet her in a Jobcentre to get instructions on the case because there was no other way to meet her. I, a white middle-class lawyer could not go to her home to meet her,†she said.
The woman is still living with her brothers who, Ms Hutchinson said, were in control. “She is cowed by her parents. She has to be terribly careful,†the solicitor said.
The woman is now 20, so it is probably too late for social services to intervene, but there must surely be some way of giving her some genuine freedom.
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