President of SI Cannock June Bould welcomed members and guests, including region President Jan Gray, to their September speaker meeting and introduced speaker Detective Sergeant Sharon Smith of the West Midlands Police. Sharon is Safeguarding Lead and specialises in the area of Domestic Abuse, in particular Forced Marriage and Honour Abuse and these last two subjects were the topic of her presentation.
She ensured that everyone understood the difference between a forced marriage and an arranged marriage: those involved in an arranged marriage have the opportunity to choose not to marry the chosen partner, those involved in a forced marriage have no choice and are often threatened that awful things will happen if the marriage does not occur; violence can often be a part of this. Forced marriage is a criminal offence and has been so since 2014.
She based her presentation on two stories of young women in the West Midlands who were the subject of forced marriage, both of whom went, bravely, to the police. In the first case [which occurred over 10 years ago] the story did not have a happy ending as the woman was murdered by her father. The second story ended in a completely different way, possibly because the Police handled the situation very differently. Police worked closely with the young woman, offering alternatives all designed to help. They also worked closely with family members, including her Father, in order to achieve such a positive result. In this particular case Police Protection Orders and Non-Molestation Orders were put in place to protect her though there are many other options available.
When the matter was successfully concluded the woman involved told Detective Sergeant Smith that she wanted to advertise how wonderful the Police had been in the hope that others would feel able to go to the Police for help should they need to. This resulted in a national newspaper writing articles and also appearances on a daytime TV programme.
Part of the established way of working by the police should a woman or girl report that she is being forced to marry someone against her wishes is that the police will always take the matter seriously; they will see the woman immediately and alone; they will respect the woman’s wishes and reassure them; they will establish means of safe contact.
Soroptimist Jackie Prince gave the vote of thanks, commending Sharon on the work she and her colleagues do.
Photo attached: June Bould, President, SI Cannock; Detective Sergeant Sharon Smith; Jan Gray, President, SI Midland Chase Region