'Wall of silence' on forced marriages

LONDON, March 8 (UPI) -- Many forced marriages among immigrant families in Britain never come to the attention of authorities, a report for the Home Office determined.

The study estimated the number of forced marriages is 10 times the 300 reported last year, The Guardian said. That would mean at least 3,000 teenage girls and young women become unwilling brides, the British newspaper said.

Nazia Khanum, the researcher who conducted the study, said there is a "wall of silence" around the issue. She made a distinction between forced and arranged marriages, where both parties are able to veto the choices made by parents or other relatives.

"We are talking about girls being very much coerced into those marriages, often not knowing beforehand who their husbands will be, and then having little or no rights once they are married," she said. "Most of them feel there is simply no one they can turn to."

The government plans a census of girls who have disappeared from the school system to determine how many have been forced into marriage.