Daily MailThe number of young British Asians being forced into arranged marriages abroad could be as high as 3,000 a year - ten times official estimates.
Fears over the scale of a practice described as 'abhorrent' by a Muslim Tory peer were revealed yesterday in a Home Office-funded study.
The research came as a select committee investigating the disappearance of children from school rolls revealed that more than 2,000 pupils were unaccounted for in 14 areas of the country.
It is thought that a proportion of these are girls who have been removed from education and forced into marriages overseas.
The Government's forced marriage unit investigates 300 "hardcore" cases a year, some involving young women and even men, but many victims are girls still young enough to be at school.
Sometimes the marriages are arranged by parents fearful that their children have become too "westernised".
However, management consultant Dr Nazia Khanum, who wrote the latest study, said: "If you follow the examples of rape and domestic violence, where only 10 per cent to 12 per cent of cases are reported, it's a reasonable assumption that it is the tip of the iceberg."
To support her case, Dr Khanum pointed out that 300 forced marriages were reported to the authorities in Luton alone each year.
She accepted that these inquiries did not necessarily relate to hardcore cases, but argued: "It still indicates the scale of the problem of forced marriages, which are unacceptable, and condemned by all religions.
Continue reading: Thousands of forced marriages
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