Arranged and forced marraige’s

Last week my attention was caught by our new law making forced marriage illegal for both men and women. I spent a little time reading and looking at some of the material that was appearing, recognizing this milestone legislation and realised I had been stereotyping arranged marriage. The  Muslim Women’s Network UK gives some easy reading, fact sheets and support links. In my minds eye I have been viewing arranged marriage as the same as a forced marriage. With a moments thought the weakness in this thinking is apparent. Plainly arranged marriages can be freely entered into ….and forced marriages are what they say on the tin. ChildLine has a short animation illustrating the differences. 🙂