Bring forced marriage out of the shadows

Federal action is needed to put an end to forced marriages in some U.S. immigrant communities

As Ms. Alanen rightly points out, "Anti-forced-marriage instruments typically draw a bright line between respecting a cultural group's right to perpetuate the practice of arranged (mutually consensual) marriages and forced (nonconsensual) marriages; in reality, that line is easily blurred."

Immediate steps need to be taken to eliminate this pernicious practice. Some initiatives that could help, to begin with, are effective legislation and guidelines to various agencies that may deal with complaints and actual cases — such as the police, judiciary and service providers in the social, health and education sectors. Setting up a separate unit of the U.S. Justice Department, similar to the Forced Marriage Unit in Britain, to implement policies and act as a watchdog would be greatly helpful. Such a unit should assist victims with their needs and train service providers to recognize and report actual and suspected cases.

Perhaps most important, we need to bring forced marriage out of the shadows, raising awareness in local communities that this is a serious violation of human rights that causes lasting damage to its victims.

Saroj Iyer is a journalist and attorney in Washington, D.C. Her email is [e-mail].

Editor's note: An earlier version of this article misidentified the organization that employs one of the sources quoted, Julia Alanen. That earlier version also omitted quotation marks from Ms. Alanen's comments, giving the impression that the lines were paraphrases rather than direct quotes. The Baltimore Sun regrets these errors.