Abstract
This paper explores forced marriage, a form of gender-based violence affecting women and girls worldwide. It employs a comparative approach, beginning with the victim-centred focus outlined in the Istanbul Convention. The paper analyses forced marriage data and legislative frameworks in Germany, Spain, Finland, and Ireland. It concludes that more empirical research is needed for effective prevention and recommends a shift from criminal to civil and family law, as the current approach overly narrows the concept of forced marriage. Enhanced institutional attention across all four countries is also crucial for ensuring victims’ access to justice.
Keywords
Introduction: conceptualisation and international regulatory framework
Forced marriage (FM) is a victimisation process that primarily affects young women and even girls, relegating them to a clearly inferior position in life compared with men, who are much less likely to be victims of this phenomenon. Traditional conceptualisations of FM identify it solely with the use of violence or intimidation to force one or both parties into a marriage, thereby distinguishing it from the practice of arranged marriage (Anitha and Gill, 2011; HM Government, 2010). According to such conceptualisations, FM differs from arranged marriage in that, in the latter, both parties consent to the assistance of their parents or a third party in choosing a spouse (Anitha and Gill, 2011; HM Government, 2010). However, when FM is considered a manifestation of gender-based violence (Bunting et al., 2016; Gill and Anitha, 2011) and approached from an intersectional perspective – whereby processes of power and subordination in postmodern society are not solely explained by the binary system of sex and gender, but a multiplicity of factors, including gender, but also, for example, race and class (Crenshaw, 1991) – a wider range of situations can be identified as FM.
Based on these premises, a more inclusive conception of FM has emerged that is less attached to the binary conceptualisation of coercion and consent (Anitha and Gill, 2011), making the boundaries between it and arranged marriage more fluid. According to this more contemporary characterisation of FM, there is a continuum of coercion, such that the methods of coercion used to force a person to marry may not necessarily involve violence or intimidation, but may consist of more subtle processes, such as the use of coercive control (Anitha and Gill, 2009, 2011), resulting in highly conditional marital consent. Furthermore, victims trapped in an FM after it has been entered into, as well as cases in which termination of the marriage is prevented (Gangoli et al., 2011), would also fall within the bounds of FM, in addition to victims forced to marry against their will.
FM is prohibited under international law. Forcing a person to marry is a violation of international human rights law and international treaty law. Both Article 16.2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 23.3 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights state that marriage can only be entered into with the free and full consent of the intending spouses. The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, considered the ‘International Bill of Women’s Rights’, provides that the States Parties must ensure on equal terms for men and women the right to freely choose a spouse and to enter into marriage only with their free and full consent.
The Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery, which entered into force in 1957 prohibited FM, but only in cases where it involved a ‘consideration in money or in kind’. More recently, the international legal instrument that most clearly prohibits FM was adopted at the European regional level: the 2011 Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention). Article 37 of this convention directly mandates the prohibition of FM, providing that the Parties shall adopt such legislative or other measures as may be necessary to ensure that both the intentional conduct of forcing an adult or a minor to enter into marriage and the intentional luring of a person to the territory of a state other than their state of residence for the purpose of forcing that person to enter into marriage are criminalised.
Although the Istanbul Convention is oriented towards the criminalisation of various forms of violence against women, it takes a victim- rather than crime-centred approach to combating this phenomenon. It moreover assumes a holistic approach, known as a 3P policy, whereby the institutional response to any manifestation of violence against women must place the victim at the centre. This means that public and legislative policies should primarily be aimed at protecting the victims (first P) and preventing these behaviours (second P), albeit without ruling out the prosecution of those responsible (third P) (Villacampa, 2021). This approach has subsequently been complemented with a fourth P (partnership), giving rise to what have been called the ‘four pillars’ of the Istanbul Convention. According to this fourth P, the strategy to address violence against women, including FM, must be multi-agency, involving domestic and international cooperation. The incorporation of this fourth P simply reinforces the idea that the response to various manifestations of violence against women, including FM, should be based more on protecting the victim than on prosecuting the crime.
Most European Union (EU) countries have ratified the aforementioned international instruments, particularly the Istanbul Convention, and should thus have adopted a victim-centred or holistic approach to FM. The present analysis focuses on Germany, Spain, Finland, and Ireland, all of which have ratified them and which represent different geographical areas of the EU (southern, central, and northern Europe), as well as both the civil and common law traditions. From a comparative perspective, the following sections describe FM phenomenologically and analyse the legislative and institutional approach to it in each of these European countries with the aim of identifying the extent to which they have adopted the victim-centric approach and the differences between them.
Phenomenological description of forced marriage in the analysed countries
The first requirement to take preventive measures against FM is to understand the phenomenology of this reality in the geographical context in which it must be tackled. This is necessary not only to confirm that this type of behaviour is indeed taking place, but also to determine its prevalence, the victim characteristics, and the dynamics of commission.
Prevalence of forced marriage
FM exists in all four of the analysed countries. Public debate on the issue seems to have occurred in all of them, not only concerning the criminalisation of such conduct in the three countries that have classified FM as a specific offence, but also due to widely reported cases in the media showing that such episodes happen in Europe, too, and thus raising awareness of the phenomenon. In Germany, public debate on the issue has increased since the turn of the century, possibly as a result of the growing media interest in FM and honour violence in immigrant communities. This, in turn, may be due to the extensive coverage of cases such as the 2005 honour killing of Hatun Surücü, a 23-year-old woman of Turkish and Kurdish descent, raised in Berlin. Surücü, who had divorced her husband, to whom she had been forcibly married at the age of 16, and embraced a Western lifestyle, was murdered by her younger brother for dishonouring the family (Braun, 2015). The 2022 killings of the sisters Arooj and Aneesa Abbas, aged 24 and 20, respectively, in Pakistan at the hands of their in-laws, presumably instigated by their father from Spain, have had a similar awareness-raising effect on Spanish public opinion. These two young women, raised near Barcelona, had travelled to Pakistan under false pretences. When they said they wanted to divorce the men they had been forced to marry and refused to bring them back with them to Spain, they were murdered for dishonouring their family.
Despite the consensus in the analysed countries that this reality may be on the rise in recent years, none of them collect any systematic statistical data on FM. Although, as will be discussed below, some quantitative data are collected in all four, the lack of systematisation in officially collected data suggests that the FMs that do come to light may be only the tip of the iceberg (Villacampa and Torres, 2021). The fact that the number of detected cases varies from country to country may be explained by differences in the make-up of the population; however, it may also be due to differences in the level of awareness of the frontline professionals involved in detecting such cases.
In the most populous country, Germany, FM is no longer considered a marginal phenomenon in large cities such as Berlin, Hamburg, or Frankfurt. Especially during the summer holidays, cases of FM increase rapidly when families travel to their home countries. According to an article published in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Kreutzmann, 2022), counselling centres in Berlin estimate that there are about 600 cases of FM per year, although the true number could be higher. According to European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA, 2014) data, 830 counselling centres in Germany reported that 3,443 people sought counselling on this issue in 2008. In approximately 40% of the cases, the FM had already taken place. Beyond the results of this report, there is little data on the prevalence of FM at the national level in Germany. Thus, for example, according to Statista Research Department (2023) Statistics, of the 73 recorded cases of FM in 2021, 46 were attempts, involving 79 recorded victims, 71 of whom were girls.
In contrast to police figures, in its latest annual report (Solwodi, 2022), the NGO Solwodi reported having dealt with 2,278 initial contacts related to FM. The majority of these contacts came from African countries (mostly Nigeria), Eastern Europe, and South-Eastern Europe. The contrast between the number of victims treated and the number of cases registered in Germany confirms that registered cases may be only the beginning.
The situation is not so different in Spain, the second most populous of the analysed countries, where statistics on the issue at the national level are piecemeal and incomplete. The only official data collected on FM in Spain are from the police, and they are only collected when FM is a manifestation of trafficking in human beings (THB). FM has not traditionally been considered or addressed as a form of violence against women in Spain. Its incidence is not reflected in the official victimisation data included in the monthly statistical bulletins published by the Government Delegation against Gender Violence or in the victimisation data obtained through the macro-surveys on violence against women. The most recent such macro-survey (Delegación del Gobierno Contra la Violencia de Género, 2020) includes data on violence against women occurring outside the couple, but no data on FM, although it does note that immigrant women report more intimate partner violence than Spanish women (28.6% vs 20%). The only official data are police data linking this reality to THB, and, between 2016 (the first year for which data exist) and 2022, CITCO identified only 18 FM victims (CITCO, 2022).
Within Spain, more official data on FM are available from Catalonia, an autonomous region in which the regulatory and institutional approach to FM was undertaken earlier than in the rest of the country and which, from the start, has addressed this phenomenon as a manifestation of gender-based violence rather than a specific form of trafficking. The Catalan regional police, the Mossos d’Esquadra have been collecting data on FM since 2009. Between 2009 and 2022, they contacted 209 victims of FM, including 113 minors and 96 adults, 173 at risk of being forced to marry and 36 already married.
The number of women coming into contact with third-sector entities specialised in assisting FM victims is even greater than the number of those who turn to the criminal justice system. For example, the organisation Valentes i Acompanyades in Catalonia reports having assisted 108 victims between 2021 and 2023. The figures in Spain also show a large gap between the number of detected FM victims and the number of those ultimately recorded as such or who report the crime, especially when CITCO (2022) figures are compared with those of third-sector organisations.
As for the two least populated study countries, in Finland, the number of identified FM victims has increased significantly since 2016 (Jokinen et al., 2023). There, they are often identified in the context of THB. The Finnish Immigration Service operates the National Assistance System for Victims of Trafficking under the auspices of the Joutseno shelter. The number of FM victims admitted to the system has increased annually. For example, among women and girls admitted to the assistance system in 2021, sexual exploitation was the most usual form of exploitation, accounting for 42% of all cases. In 2022, it was also the most common form of trafficking among the women and girls admitted to the assistance system (37%, 72 persons). Almost two-thirds of the women had been trafficked to another country, mainly the victim’s country of origin (National Assistance System for Victims of Human Trafficking, 2022). Victim Support Finland (Rikosuhripäivystys (RIKU)) has also identified an increasing number of FM victims (RIKU, 2023). In 2021, its specialised service for victims of THB and labour exploitation assisted 675 people (vs 508 in 2020), of whom 10% were FM victims in both years (Lepistö, 2022). In 2022, it identified a total of 30 FM victims. According to the Finnish Police, in 2021 and 2022, 17 cases of FM were investigated as THB or aggravated THB. In Finland, then, there is also a clear gap between the number of FM cases investigated by the police and the number of FM victims detected by third-sector organisations, to the extent that the Finnish National Anti-Trafficking Plan 2021 even notes that cases of FM are not reported to the police and do not result in criminal justice proceedings (Roth and Luhtasaari, 2021).
The scant data obtained in Ireland similarly point to the ineffectiveness of the criminal justice system in detecting and dealing with cases of FM. Although no information on the subject is published on the official Irish Central Statistics Office website, private correspondence between the Immigrant Council of Ireland and staff from the portal confirms that in the first quarter of 2023, only 5 criminal incidents of FM were recorded as having been reported to the Irish police as having occurred in 2021 and 2022, with no record of anyone having been charged or summoned in relation to them. 1 In addition, in a recent newspaper report, a state representative of the Irish Department of Justice noted that 1–2 cases of FM are investigated per year and acknowledged that it may be a hidden practice, which is difficult to measure in Ireland (AkiDwA, 2022).
Victim profile and dynamics of forced marriage
As for the profile of the victims, academic and official research carried out in the four countries offers some clues as to the slightly different patterns in each one. In general, the phenomenon is considered to affect certain communities that have arrived in Western Europe after the corresponding migratory process, which, for reasons such as ensuring cultural-community continuity in the wake of this process, procuring a better economic future for their daughters, regularising their residential status in Europe, paying debts, or disciplining the Western lifestyle of their descendants to prevent family disgrace, force mainly girls and young women into marriages they have not chosen (Hansen et al., 2016; Kervinen and Ollus, 2019; Klemetti and Raussi-Lehto, 2023; Villacampa, 2020; Villacampa and Torres, 2021; Viuhko et al., 2016). However, the phenomenology varies to different degrees depending on the migration waves that have reached each of the analysed countries.
In Germany, FM is often associated with the Muslim community of Turkish origin. The Turkish population is the largest immigrant group in Germany and is thus statistically more likely to be affected by this practice. However, FMs occur in Germany not only within Islamic communities, but also Buddhist and Hindu ones, as well as communities originating from some African and European countries (Braun, 2015). In some cases, these situations affect families who have lived in Germany for decades. Some of them are not necessarily strict believers but insist on adhering to the moral ideals of their patriarchal country of origin (Kreutzmann, 2022). In many cases, girls and young women have been shown to be recurrently coerced into FM through subtle pressures: they are repeatedly approached with the marriage proposal and told that they will learn to love the person they are going to marry (Yerlikaya and Çakir-Ceylan, 2011).
In Spain, the first nationwide quantitative study on FM was carried out using an online survey answered by 150 organisations from an invited sample of 518 (Villacampa and Torres, 2020). Subsequently, qualitative studies were conducted with 34 criminal justice and care professionals, as well as survivors (Torres and Villacampa, 2022; Villacampa, 2020; Villacampa and Torres, 2021). Specifically, victims were found to be mostly underage or very young women, mainly from North Africa (43%), Sub-Saharan Africa (25%), and South Asia (9%), followed by those of Roma ethnicity (7%). Notwithstanding their origins, the majority of victims are Spanish or have legal residence in Spain (75%). The coercive tactics used are low-intensity and related to tradition and belonging to a community (Parella et al., 2023; Villacampa, 2020; Villacampa and Torres, 2021). Victims generally seek help when they are in a position of empowerment, and cases are usually brought to the attention of specialised organisations when the situation has escalated to family violence after the marriage has already taken place. In addition, victims are reluctant to pursue criminal prosecution, especially if it involves denouncing their own family, although less so when it comes to denouncing the abusive husband.
In Finland, a report published by Victim Support Finland (RIKU, 2023) based on the analysis of trafficking victims who have also suffered sexual violence shows that the majority of victims are nationals of Middle Eastern (37%) or Asian countries (23%). These groups are followed by nationals of African (16%), Northern European (7%), and other European countries (5%). Some 50% of the victims were in the country with a residence permit, while 23% were asylum seekers, 9% Finnish nationals, and 3% undocumented. The majority of the victims with residence permits had obtained them through family ties (Pihlaja and Piipponen, 2023). Of these victims, 29% were minors, a factor associated with increased vulnerability and greater difficulty in disengaging from the situation (Pihlaja and Piipponen, 2023). Other identified vulnerabilities and risks associated with FM include the threat of honour-based violence, community pressure, uncertainties related to residence permits, and a lack of language skills, as well as a lack of awareness of rights under Finnish law (Pihlaja and Piipponen, 2023).
In Ireland, it is difficult to determine which groups are most affected by FM due to the lack of recorded data on the nationality of those involved in reported cases. The women reported by frontline workers as affected are mainly from population groups whose cultures have a tradition of arranged marriage, including Afghan, Indian, and Muslim population groups (AkiDwA, 2022). A recent review of court cases related to international protection in which the issue of FM was found to affect protection seekers showed that they were Nigerian. Similarly, there have been reports of FM affecting members of the Irish Traveller community in the United Kingdom, although there is limited information available on the prevalence of this, and the Irish Traveller movement questions whether this is a widespread practice in this community (Holland, 2015). In Ireland, cases of FM and early marriage have also been reported in some Roma communities (Pavee Point Travellers Centre, 2012).
In terms of the dynamics of FM, that is, the modus operandi according to which it is entered into or maintained, as noted, most of the cases in the four study countries can be described as family- and community-driven processes (Villacampa and Torres, 2021; Yerlikaya and Çakir-Ceylan, 2011), in which young people, especially young women and girls, are led by their families and reference persons into marriages that are decided for them. In these cases, violence does not overtly surface before the marriage takes place, unless the victim openly refuses to marry. However, in those countries in which this phenomenon has been legally addressed as one of the possible exploitative purposes of the crime of THB, the dynamics of FM cases have also been characterised as equivalent to those of THB, specifically, as situations of the direct sale of daughters, when not as cases in which the violence surfaces more clearly. This has been observed in Spain, especially when episodes of FM are described by professionals in the criminal justice system (Villacampa and Torres, 2021), as well as in Finland. As a consequence, some of these victims are said to have faced considerable physical, psychological, and sexual violence, economic exploitation, and, in some cases, even economic crimes committed in their name (National Assistance System for Victims of Human Trafficking, 2023). Another consequence is that in these cases, unlike those in which the FM is a family-driven process, it is often not the victim’s family but the spouse or someone from the spouse’s family who is considered the perpetrator of the FM (Pihlaja and Piipponen, 2023).
Also related to the dynamics of these behaviours are the different types of FM observed, in Finland and Germany, depending on the victims’ and perpetrators’ place of residence and the place where the marriage takes place. In Finland, three types of FM have been identified according to this variable (Kervinen and Ollus, 2019; Pihlaja and Piipponen, 2023; Toivonen, 2017): (a) cases in which one of the contracting persons has been living in Finland for a long period, travels back to his or her home country to get married, and brings his or her husband or wife to Finland based on family ties; (b) couples who married abroad and have moved to Finland as asylum seekers or for another reason; and (c) cases in which a person has grown up in Finland and is sent back to his or her family’s home country to get married. Similarly, in Germany, four such situations have been described (Mirbach et al., 2011): (a) FM in Germany between persons of immigrant origin with German nationality or migrants; (b) FM abroad of women who have grown up in Germany and are forced to marry a man from their family’s country of origin and to live there after the marriage; (c) marriage for an ‘immigration card’, whereby a man from abroad receives a residence permit in Germany as a result of the marriage he has entered into; and (d) ‘imported’ brides, that is, young women from abroad who are brought to Germany to marry a man who lives there. These arrays of cases show how closely related FM is to migration issues in two key ways. First, immigration issues, especially those related to the regularisation of resident status, can be a driving factor for FM. Second, as shown, resident status is a key factor in understanding when victims seek institutional support and should be considered an important component of any FM victim assistance programme.
The lack of systematic statistical data on forced marriage in the analysed countries affects the reliability and scope of this study. While some figures are available from police records and third-sector organisations, they are often fragmented, inconsistent, and not comparable across jurisdictions. This data gap limits the possibility of drawing generalizable conclusions and may result in underestimating the true prevalence of the phenomenon. To mitigate these limitations, the analysis relies on triangulation of sources, combining legal texts, qualitative studies, NGO reports, and expert interviews. This approach allows for a more nuanced understanding of forced marriage dynamics, even in the absence of comprehensive quantitative data. Nevertheless, the findings must be interpreted with caution, and future research should prioritise the development of harmonised data collection systems to support evidence-based policymaking.
Comparative legislative analysis of forced marriage
The legislative approach adopted in the four study countries arises from the international legal requirements that bind them. In particular, it is guided by those established under the Istanbul Convention, which, as noted, obliges States Parties to criminalise FM, but also adopts an approach to this reality that prioritises protecting victims over prosecuting the crime.
Preferentially punitive national approach to forced marriage
Following the dictates of this Convention, three of the four study countries (Germany, Spain, and Ireland) introduced a specific offence of FM in their respective criminal law systems, as did most European countries in the 2010s. Germany criminalised FM by including a specific offence in Article 237 of the German Criminal Code in 2011. The second study country to criminalise FM was Spain, which in 2015 included FM among the crimes against freedom to act, in Article 172 bis of the Spanish Criminal Code. In addition, THB for the purpose of forcing victims to marry was included as a specific form of THB in Article 177 bis of the Spanish Criminal Code. In Ireland, a specific offence of FM was similarly introduced through section 38 of the Domestic Violence Act 2018. Finland is the only one of the four study countries that has not yet introduced a specific offence of FM. Instead, such cases are addressed under existing provisions of the Finnish Criminal Code. On 12 November 2024, Parliament amended Chapter 25, section 3(1) to expressly include ‘forced marriage’ as a form of exploitation under the trafficking in human beings (THB) provision, with the amendment entering into force on 1 January 2025. This reform clarifies that forced marriage may fall within the scope of THB, but it does not amount to the creation of a specific offence of forced marriage. In addition, conduct that compels a person to marry can also be prosecuted under the general offence of coercion, which remains unaffected by the 2024 amendment.
Regardless of whether they have a specific offence of FM, in all four study countries, the predominant legislative approach to this reality is through criminal law; it is also predominantly punitive. Of the 3Ps mentioned as part of the victim-centred approach to this reality, the P for prosecution has received the greatest legislative attention. Because this reality is mainly addressed through criminal law, the primary options are either the creation of a specific offence of FM or the predominant use of the offence of THB. This latter option can be seen both in countries that have not specifically criminalised FM, such as Finland, and countries, such as Spain, that recognise a specific form of THB to exploit victims by forcing them to marry, which, incidentally, the courts are more likely to use to punish FM than the specific offence of FM itself.
With regard to the fulfilment of the other two Ps to be considered in the adoption of a victim-centred policy to deal with FM – prevention and, above all, protection – the analysed countries have undertaken some legislative initiatives to round out the legal status of victims in these cases.
In Germany, Finland, and Ireland, national authorities have recently turned to civil and family law to address the phenomenon of FM. In Germany, the Law on Combating Child Marriages, introduced in 2017, aims to protect young girls and women, both German and non-German, from marriages arranged against their will (Toivonen, 2017). In Ireland, the Domestic Violence Act 2018 similarly included civil measures to prevent and respond to FM. More recently, in Finland, an amendment to the Marriage Act (234/1928) adopted in 2023 introduced measures using civil- and family-law instruments to counteract FM (Toivonen, 2017). Specifically, the amendment incorporates section 27 that allows a marriage to be annulled when a spouse has been forced into marriage. In all three countries, civil regulations provide for measures such as prohibiting marriages under the age of 18, limiting the recognition of marriages performed abroad, excluding the possibility of performing marriages by proxy, and adapting the provisions on nullity and annulment of marriage to children and FMs.
As for Spain, there is a noticeable difference between the more punitive approach taken at the national level and the more victim-centred one taken in Catalonia. The national approach was mainly punitive until 2022, when Organic Law 10/2022 of 6 September on the Comprehensive Guarantee of Sexual Freedom was passed. Its predecessor, Organic Law 1/2004, of 28 December, on Comprehensive Protection against Gender Violence, did not include FM in the concept of gender violence. With the passage of the new specific law, FM was explicitly included as one of the possible manifestations of sexual violence whose victims it covers. Through Organic Law 10/2022, Spain has finally adopted a 3P policy, that is, a holistic approach to protecting victims of sexual violence, including FM victims. However, it does not contain provisions of a civil nature to address FM, such as those listed above.
In contrast to the punitive national approach in force until 2022, some Spanish regions adopted a victim-centred policy and institutional approach to addressing FM early on. For instance, Law 5/2008 in Catalonia already considered FM to be sexual violence, which is indicative of a more welfare-oriented approach focused on victims’ recovery rather than punishment. Other Spanish regional laws, such as Law 13/2007 in Andalusia or Law 7/2012 in the Valencian Community, continued to include FM as a form of violence against women, adopting victim-centred approaches. However, none of these regional laws addresses FM from a civil-law perspective with a view to preventing or dissolving it, as civil legislation is the competence of the state.
Legal concept of forced marriage
The concept of FM generally adopted in each country determines the preferentially punitive nature of the legal approach to FM associated with a specific offence of FM. However, it is also influenced by that specific offence. In particular, the concept of FM was found to vary across the four analysed countries depending on whether they had adopted a legal concept of FM based on a specific offence of FM. In countries where the main legal reference from which the concept of FM is derived is the Criminal Code, the concept of FM remains close to the traditional concept described at the start of this paper, which clearly differentiates it from arranged marriage and is consistent with the implicit and restrictive concept of FM that States Parties must criminalise under Article 37 of the Istanbul Convention.
This is the case in Spain, where the only legal concept of FM contained in national legislation is that deduced from Article 172 bis of the Spanish Criminal Code. Aside from the Criminal Code, no other national legislation establishes a concept of FM. Although Article 172 bis of the Spanish Criminal Code does not include a definition of FM, it includes as a classified conduct that of an individual who ‘with serious intimidation or violence forces another person to enter into marriage’, as well as that consisting of using such means or deception to force another person to leave Spanish territory or not to return to it in order to force them to enter into a marriage. It follows that the concept of FM is legally identified in Spain as a marriage contracted without the consent or against the will of at least one of the contracting parties as a result of the use of physical or psychological force – specifically, serious intimidation.
At the Spanish regional level, Article 4 of Catalan Law 5/2008 mentions FM as a manifestation of sexual violence, albeit without defining it. Since 2018, Article 3.4.j) of Law 13/2007 of the Parliament of Andalusia has stated that early or FM should be understood as Marriage to which the woman has not freely and fully consented, either because it is the result of an agreement between third parties, alien to her will, or because it is entered into under conditions of intimidation or violence, or because she has not reached the legally established age to give it or lacks the capacity to grant it, even if, at the time the marriage is entered into, she has not been declared legally incapacitated.
The case of Germany is similar to Spain. Since the introduction of the offence of FM in Article 237 of the German Criminal Code, German law has defined FM as a marriage in which a third person coerces the victim through the use of force or the threat of serious harm. An FM is characterised by the lack of free will on the part of the victim. Consequently, in Germany, too, FM is clearly distinguished from arranged marriage, in which the contracting parties can reject the partner proposed by relatives, friends, or marriage brokers. Only FM is criminalised, while arranged marriage is considered a respected cultural tradition (Braun, 2015). The specific criminal offence is so focused on the use of force to coerce someone to enter into a marriage that some scholars have argued that the specific offence should not have been called ‘forced marriage’, echoing the common language used to describe this phenomenon, but ‘forcing someone to marry’, which better describes the criminalised conduct (Braun, 2015). Accordingly, Germany adopts a slightly broader legal concept of FM than Spain, including religious ceremonies when they involve minors.
In Ireland, too, the generally adopted concept of FM is restricted and adheres to its traditional characterisation on the basis of its criminal regulation, although it is slightly broader than in Spain and Germany. This country is no exception among the four analysed here, as in it, too, the term FM is used to describe a marriage to which one of the parties did not consent. In fact, Ireland criminalised FM through the passage of the Domestic Violence Act 2018 (section 38 (1)), which introduced the offence of causing another person to enter into a FM. Under this provision, a person commits an offence if he or she engages in ‘relevant conduct’ for the purpose of causing another person to enter into a marriage ceremony, where ‘relevant conduct’ means ‘violence, threats, undue influence or any form of coercion or duress’. A closer examination of the means of commission included in the offence again makes it possible to deduce that only marriage entered into as a result of the use of physical or psychological violence is considered FM. However, some have claimed that the legal concept adopted in this country might be slightly broader than that assumed in Spain or Germany inasmuch as it also refers to ‘undue influence’ or ‘any form of coercion or duress’ beyond violence or threat as a way of forcing another into marriage, which could include cases of coercive control. It also considers marriage to include any marriage entered into by means of any religious, civil, or secular ceremony, even if it lacks legal effect, as set out in section 38 (11) of the Domestic Violence Act 2018. In addition, as child marriage – the marriage of a person under the age of 18 – has been prohibited in Ireland since 1 January 2019, marriages in which at least one of the parties is a minor can be considered FMs in Ireland, as it is understood that a minor cannot consent to a marriage.
However, both in Spain and in Germany and Ireland voices in academia have called for the need to adopt a broader and more current conception of FM, in line with that defended by the authors mentioned at the start of this article, questioning the preferably criminal law approach adopted so far (Braun, 2015; Leahy et al., 2018; Torres and Villacampa, 2022; Villacampa, 2020; Villacampa and Torres, 2020, 2021).
The case of Finland differs from that of the other three countries described so far, possibly because it lacks a specific regulated offence of FM. On the one hand, the Finnish Ministry of Justice’s guidelines on FM show a broad understanding of the phenomenon. According to them, FM generally does not occur as a single event, but as a series of actions over time. Victims may suffer physical, psychological, or economic pressure, and coercion may manifest itself in subtle ways through threats or the use of force. In addition, the pressure may be social, as the victim may fear rejection or exclusion from her community if she refuses the marriage. In cases involving minors, the victim may feel that accepting the marriage is her responsibility, which may hinder her ability to leave without other viable alternatives (Oikeusministeriö, 2020).
On the other hand, the previous Finnish government examined the possibility of criminalising FM as part of its government platform. In this regard, a memorandum was published in 2021 (Mäkipää, 2021), which suggested that FM and related conducts were already covered by the Finnish Criminal Code. However, it was proposed that the regulations on THB be clarified to include a specific definition of FM. Finally, the political platform of the government elected in June 2023 includes a pledge, related to FM, concerning the advisability of investigating whether there is a need to criminalise coercive control, along with some actions to be taken to better address THB (Valtioneuvosto, 2023), which is closely related to FM in Finland.
Institutional initiatives to address forced marriage
Beyond the legal approach to FM in the study countries, there is nothing to suggest that it is an institutional priority in any of them, at least not until quite recently. In none of these countries does the implementation of institutional measures to combat FM, the design of public policies to tackle it, or the provision of economic resources to combat this phenomenon appear to be a central element in their respective political strategies. Proof of this is that the Council of Europe’s Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO), tasked with monitoring the implementation of the Istanbul Convention, has warned some of these countries of the need to address this phenomenon to a greater extent. This is the case of Germany, in relation to which GREVIO, in its first evaluation report (GREVIO, 2022), notes that many policy measures focus mainly on domestic and sexual violence, while other forms of violence against women, such as FM or female genital mutilation, do not seem to have received comparable attention, even though the Convention requires the Parties to adopt a holistic approach covering all manifestations of violence against women. The group of experts came to similar conclusions in its first evaluation report on Spain (GREVIO, 2020).
As noted, FM is emerging on the political scene in the studied countries due to media coverage, although its institutional visibility is limited by a narrow phenomenological analysis and incomplete understanding. The narrow perception of gender-based violence, previously restricted to intimate partner violence, has also contributed to its low institutional visibility. In Germany, for example, FM issues were not publicly discussed for decades due to the philosophy of minimal interference in immigrant family matters, intended to preserve a multicultural society (Schubert and Moebius, 2006). Moreover, the fear of discriminating against certain religious or cultural communities led to the avoidance of public discussion of FM, contradicting the goals of immigration and integration policies (Braun, 2015).
The signing of the Istanbul Convention by the analysed countries, which coincided with the refugee crisis of 2015, meant that FM began to be addressed institutionally (Hong, 2019, 2020; Olsson, 2019). However, the intensity with which this reality is institutionally addressed varies across the analysed countries: it seems to have gained greater prominence in Germany, in some Spanish regions, and in Finland, while receiving less attention in Ireland.
In Germany, the Parliament has recently published a document on honour-based violence and oppression (2023) that identifies FM as a specific manifestation of honour-based violence against women and girls. In addition, the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (2022) published a brochure on FM, mainly aimed at professionals working in child and youth welfare, providing information on the situation of victims and explaining the support options available to them.
In Spain, the institutional approach to FM also varies depending on whether one is examining the national or Catalan regional approach. The national strategies approved in the country to combat gender-based violence have focused heavily on intimate partner violence, with little mention of FM. The State Strategy for the Eradication of Violence against Women 2013–2016, which remained in force until November 2022, was the first to mention FM, although without providing for specific measures to address it beyond referring to the need to consider the special vulnerability of migrant women in this situation. The State Strategy against Gender-based Violence 2022–2025, adopted following GREVIO’s (2020) suggestions, is more comprehensive, covering all forms of gender-based violence, including FM. However, it is more focused on combating sexual violence against women, especially trafficking and sexual exploitation, than on addressing honour-based violence and FM.
In Catalonia, FM was addressed institutionally in 2009 through the Police Procedure for Preventing and Responding to FM, as part of the Catalan government’s Safety Programme to Prevent Male Violence. Subsequently, in March 2020, the Catalan government adopted the Protocol for Preventing and Responding to FM in Catalonia, currently under review, which guides institutional action in the region. This Protocol seeks to enable cooperation and establish an intervention circuit to prevent, detect, and intervene in situations of FM, with prevention, detection, care, and recovery phases. The Catalan strategy is being adopted in other regions of Spain, such as Navarre, which is developing its protocol following this model.
In Finland, different ministerial initiatives have been taken since 2015 to address FM. Since the specific offence of FM has not yet been introduced in Finland, these initiatives are very much focused on the discussion of whether to introduce it, as well as on how broad the concept of FM should be. They mainly include the initiatives referred to in the policy papers mentioned in the section on the concept of FM and its particularities in Finland.
Finally, in Ireland, although the Third National Strategy on Domestic, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence, which sets out how the state will address these violent behaviours between 2022 and 2026, does not explicitly mention FM, it does refer to Sustainable Development Goal 5, which includes eliminating FM among its targets. On the other hand, the protection of victims of female genital mutilation, who are explicitly mentioned among vulnerable crime victims, appears to be a priority for the Irish Ministry of Justice, which, in a written reply to Parliament in 2023, indicated that the Department of Justice is developing legislation to implement the recommendations of the O’Malley Report (O’Malley et al., 2020). The aim is to strengthen the rights of sexual offence victims, as well as consider how to strengthen the protection of other vulnerable victims – such as victims of female genital mutilation – to minimise potential re-traumatisation and intimidation during trials, particularly when they are testifying as witnesses.
Conclusions
In accordance with the binding international regulatory requirements for the four countries examined in this comparative study, in particular the Istanbul Convention, tackling FM calls for the adoption of a holistic approach. Accordingly, not only must these conducts be prosecuted, but above all the victims must be protected. In addition, prevention must be ensured, without neglecting national and international cooperation and partnership between actors involved in the fight against FM, in accordance with a 3P or 4P policy.
Notwithstanding this international mandate, which Germany, Spain, Finland, and Ireland, among other European states, are obliged to observe, to date, these countries have adopted a predominantly punitive regulatory approach.
The brief phenomenological analysis reveals that FM is a reality that occurs in all four countries and that policy and institutional measures need to be put in place to address it. However, the scant data available in all four countries and the gap in the prevalence of victimisation between the official figures of registered cases and those provided by third-sector organisations show that the cases that do emerge in all four may be only the tip of the iceberg. Moreover, the lack of systematic knowledge about this reality makes it difficult to adopt adequate preventive strategies to eradicate it. Furthermore, although the victim profiles vary across the four countries, especially depending on the characteristics and origin of the migratory waves that each one has received, the dynamics of the cases observed in all of them are similar. In particular, they are more related to FM, understood as a process consisting of the forcing of people to enter into and remain in unwanted marriages through the use of subtle means pursued by their families or communities than as the final stage of a THB process or something occurring in any other stage of such a process.
The involvement of the victims’ families in these types of dynamics, with the ensuing danger of incrimination of the adults responsible for the young women and girls forced to marry, has not prevented the analysed countries from resorting to criminal law as a prima ratio to respond to this phenomenon. This has been done both through the creation of a specific offence of FM (in Spain, Germany, and Ireland) and by criminalising these conducts through the offence of THB, both in cases where the offence of FM has not yet been introduced (Finland) and those in which, despite the existence of a specific offence, the offence of THB is still the one primarily used (Spain). In addition to disregarding the dictates of the 3/4P policy and forcing victims to turn to the criminal justice system for protection, this preferential recourse to criminal law has led to a narrow conceptualisation of FM, especially in the three countries that have created an ad hoc offence (Germany and Spain, above all, and, to a lesser extent, Ireland, but not Finland). In keeping with the mandate to criminalise provided for under Article 37 of the Istanbul Convention, this conception identifies FM only with that which is contracted against the will or without the consent of at least one party and involving violence and intimidation. This concept leaves more subtle forms of coercion (marriages entered into under highly conditioned consent, marriages without civil effect, and those that become forced after they are entered into), as well as situations of risk of being forced to marry, out of the focus of the intervention.
This preferably criminalising and limiting approach to the range of cases to which protective measures for FM victims should be applied has to be overcome if the mandate of a holistic approach to the phenomenon is to be fulfilled. Such a shift in the legislative approach to this reality can be seen in the specific regulations introducing civil- and family-law mechanisms to address it approved in recent years in Germany, Ireland, and Finland, which seek to use non-criminal-law legal mechanisms to prevent the perpetration of FM and encourage its dissolution and which have not yet been adopted in Spain. This shift is exemplified by good practices in Catalonia (Spain), such as the adoption of structured protocols that prioritise early intervention and victim welfare. These measures would align with the Istanbul Convention’s preventive and protective pillars and offer more effective support to victims.
Finally, it should be borne in mind that law in books is one thing and law in action is another. In this sense, this study has shown that the institutional approach to FM is still not a priority in any of the four analysed countries, to the extent that Germany and Spain received warnings from GREVIO (2020, 2022) concerning their failure to address this manifestation of violence against women. Although some institutional initiatives have been taken to address FM in Germany, in part of Spain, and in Finland, the fight against this reality is not a central element of the political agenda on gender-based violence in any of the four analysed countries. However, fulfilling the holistic mandate of addressing FM requires adopting not only legislative measures, but also more instrumental ones. Only by giving institutional centrality to preventing FM and protecting at-risk victims and those trapped in these marriages, regardless of whether they have civil effect, is it possible to ensure that they will have effective access to justice in these countries. A deeper analysis reveals that institutional shortcomings stem not only from legislative gaps but also from insufficient funding, lack of specialised training for frontline professionals, and limited political will. These factors contribute to fragmented implementation and inconsistent victim support. Addressing these issues requires stable resource allocation, comprehensive training programmes, and a clear policy commitment to prioritise forced marriage as a serious form of gender-based violence.
Footnotes
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was funded by ‘Los crímenes de honor como violencia de género: delineamiento de un estatuto jurídico-asistencial protector en España’ (PID2022-136879NB-I00) and CERV-funded EASY project (‘It is never easy to talk about this’–Increasing dialogue, awareness, and victim-centred support for victims of forced marriages).
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.