How not to help girls and women escaping from forced marriage:

The Foreign Office is seeking to recoup the cost of repatriating young women who have been forced into marriages overseas, it has been revealed, prompting charities to criticise the government for making women “pay for their protection”.

An investigation found that many of the 82 victims of forced marriage repatriated in 2016-17 had to pay for living costs incurred between making distress calls and returning home, as well as their airfare, while others received loans from the Foreign Office.

They had to give up their passports as a condition of the loan until they repaid the debt, with a surcharge added to unpaid bills after six months.

That. That’s how not to do it. Don’t do it that way.

Four young British women imprisoned and tortured at a “correctional” religious school in Somalia ahead of expected forced marriages told the Times they each had to pay £740 to return home, where the burden of the loans allegedly contributed towards them becoming destitute.

Pragna Patel, the founder of Southall Black Sisters, a charity that helps women escape from forced marriages, told the Times: “These are vulnerable young women who have been taken abroad through no fault of their own and forced into slavery, and yet they are being asked to pay for their protection. It can’t be right. Protecting victims from forced marriage must be seen as a fundamental right and not a profit-making business.”

What was done to the women would be crimes if done in the UK, and the CPS doesn’t make victims pay for prosecutions, I’m pretty sure. How about not doing that when it happens abroad either?