UK Man Sentenced to Jail for Forcing a Woman to Marry Him

A man from Cardiff has become the first person convicted of forced marriage in the UK since the government made it a crime last year.

The court sentenced the 34-year-old man — whose identity cannot be revealed for legal reasons — to four years in prison for forcing a 25-year-old woman to marry him. He also pleaded guilty to four counts of rape, voyeurism, and bigamy, bringing his total prison sentence to 16 years.

According to the BBC, the man become infatuated with the woman, a devout Muslim, and raped and threatened her before forcing her to marry him, threatening to kill her father if she refused. He also threatened to show footage he secretly took of her showering if she told anyone about it.

"Over the period of which you raped her…it was your intention to cause her irreparable harm so that no one would want her," the judge told the man in court, according to The Telegraph. "While you have pleaded guilty…there has been no genuine show of remorse."

Forced marriage is different from an arranged one because there is no consent. In an arranged marriage, it is possible for both people to consent. A marriage is forced when one or both parties do not agree to the union — and it usually involves physical, emotional, or financial abuse by family or community members.

The UK forced marriage ban was first introduced in 2012 after years of campaigning by women's rights and other advocacy groups, and an increasing number of reports about it to law enforcement officials. The law, officially implemented last June, punishes those who use violence or other forms of coercion to force someone to get married by up to seven years in prison.

According to the Home Office, the government's Forced Marriage Unit (set up in 2005) "gave advice or support related to a possible marriage" to more than 1300 people in 2013, and 1267 in 2014.

The Canadian government followed the UK's lead when it introduced its bill outlawing forced marriage, the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, last November. It's expected to become law in the coming months and would also make the national minimum age of marriage 16 years old. Other countries that prohibit forced marriage include Belgium, Pakistan, and Turkey.

But many critics say criminalizing forced marriage is ineffective and can exacerbate the problem, making many people hesitant to tell on family members for fear of seeing them end up in prison.

Labour MP, Naz Shah, a survivor of forced marriage, welcomed the conviction, but criticized authorities in the UK for bringing only one conviction in the year since it became a crime.

Related: Canada Wants to Make Forced Marriage a Crime

Jasvinder Sanghera, another survivor of forced marriage and co-founder Karma Nirvana, a UK group that helps victims of forced marriage and honor-based violence told The Telegraph the conviction was a huge victory for social workers in the country working on the issue.

"We have professionals who tiptoe around the issue. Creating law empowers professionals to respond to those people without being accused of racism," she said. "It says if you decide to pursue a conviction you will be supported."

Follow Rachel Browne on Twitter: @rp_browne