Women forced into marriage overseas asked to pay repatriation costs

Source: Standard Gazette, 02/01/2019

Victims have to either pay for the price of plane tickets, basic
food and shelter themselves or, if they are over 18, take out
emergency loans with the department, The Times has reported.
The practice of making the women pay for the costs of their
repatriation has been criticised by MPs, including heads of the
influential foreign and home affairs committees.
The Foreign Office said that it has an obligation to recover money
spent on repatriating victims when public money is involved, such
as the cost of a flight back to the UK.
It is understood the women are not charged for staff costs and the
department does not profit from the repatriations.
The department helped 27 victims of forced marriage return to the
UK in 2017 and 55 in 2016, according to figures acquired by The
Times under freedom of information laws.
In the past two years the Foreign Office has lent £7,765 to at
least eight forced marriage victims who could not pay for their
repatriation.
Around £3,000 has been repaid, although debts of more than £4,500
are outstanding.
Under Foreign Office terms and conditions a surcharge of 10% is
added if an emergency loan is not repaid within six months.
In 2018 four young British women sent by their families to a
“correctional school” in Somalia, where they were imprisoned and
physically abused, were charged £740 each, the paper said.
Left destitute by the loans, two are living in refuges and two
have become drug addicts since returning to the UK, they told the
paper.
Tom Tugendhat, the Tory chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select
Committee, which monitors the work of the Foreign Office, said the
Times’ report was “astonishing”.
“(The Committee)⁩ will ask questions about this decision to charge
forced marriage victims to be rescued,” he tweeted.
“(The Foreign Office) is rightly proud of the work the @FMUnit
(forced marriages unit) does. They should be. But we shouldn’t be
charging the most vulnerable for their own protection or
dissuading them from asking for it.”
Yvette Cooper, chairwoman of the Home Affairs Committee, said she
was “completely appalled”.
“Forced marriage is slavery. For Govt to make victims pay for
their freedom is immoral. Ministers need to put this right fast,”
she tweeted.
The Prime Minister once described forced marriage as a “terrible
practice” and a “tragedy for each and every victim”.
In August Home Secretary Sajid Javid said forced marriage was
“despicable, inhumane (and) uncivilised” and vowed to “do more to
combat it and support victims”.
The Foreign Office said on Wednesday that whenever it is asked to
help people return to the UK it works with them to access their
own funds, or help them contact friends, family or organisations
that can cover the costs of repatriation.
“However, many of the victims who the Forced Marriage Unit (FMU)
help are vulnerable, and when offering any type of support their
safety is our primary concern,” a spokeswoman said.
“In very exceptional circumstances, including in cases of forced
marriage overseas, we can provide an emergency loan to help
someone return home.
“We recognise that an emergency loan can help remove a distressed
or vulnerable person from risk when they have no other options,
but as they are from public funds we have an obligation to recover
the money in due course.”
The FMU also provides funding for safe houses and NGOs overseas
and in the UK to help victims of forced marriage get to a place of
safety as soon as possible.
“We do not charge British nationals for this service and work with
organisations in the UK to support them on return,” the
spokeswoman said.
The Foreign Office said the UK is a “world-leader in the fight to
tackle the brutal practice of forced marriage, with our joint Home
Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office Forced Marriage Unit
leading efforts to combat it both at home and abroad”.