Child and forced marriage is above all prevalent in a context of honor-related violence and oppression and is both a violation of human rights and Swedish law.
Exactly how many young people are not allowed to choose who they marry is unknown – because it is illegal, it happens secretly and often outside Sweden’s borders.
The The most recent national survey was conducted in 2009 then it was established that about 70,000 young people risk being forced to marry against their will. But several smaller surveys indicate that that number has increased.
23 percent are not allowed to choose a partner freely
Some municipalities are more affected than others. In Borkyrka municipality in Stockholm, for example, every fourth girl in year nine states that she is not allowed to choose freely who she is to marry.
According to the survey conducted by TRIS, Tjejers Rätt i Samhället as a basis for Botkyrka municipality, every third girl in year nine also answered that she lives with “innocence requirements”.
One in three lives with a claim to innocence
In Botkyrka municipality, which has about 95,000 inhabitants, people are actively working in several schools before the summer to inform about forced marriage and honor killings.
At Karsby International School in Botkyrka, in addition to this, they have been working proactively for several years with, among other things, student dialogue about values and individual conversations. But according to the school’s curator Arman Hoque, the problem has been that many students disappear from the radar when they finish year nine.
– I do not know them after primary school, says Arman Hoque who is curator at Karsby International School in Botkyrka who has worked to develop an action plan against honor-related violence and oppression.
New action plan in Botkyrka
The action plan aims to develop and strengthen a municipality-wide work with regard to the work against honor-related violence and oppression.
According to Arman Houque, such work can hopefully also detect and help more of those who are at risk of forced marriage.