Mo Chaudry, Asian entrepreneur and star of Channel 4 TV’s ‘Secret Millionaire’, is determined to put arranged marriage on the General Election agenda.

Mr Chaudry, who owns the famous Waterworld attraction at Stoke-on-Trent, has been at the forefront of the campaign to criminalise arranged marriage in the UK for several years.
Speaking after David Cameron visited a Staffordshire brewery on Tuesday Mr Chaudry said: “Mr Cameron denounced the practice; in which girls and boys are forced into marrying someone they do not want to, when we discussed the problem two years ago. He told me that a Conservative government would consider making forced marriages a criminal offence.”
Tory legislation, proposed at the time, would include making would-be brides and grooms come to Britain to get married. Also, their partners in the UK would have to be at least 21 years of age.
British nationals travelling abroad to marry will have to register in the UK beforehand if they want their marriage recognised for immigration purposes.
300 cases are reported annually to the Government’s Forced Marriage Unit but the true figure is likely to be very much higher.
“It seems utterly bizarre, and frankly unacceptable, that this goes on in Britain – but it does,” said Mr Chaudry.
The Forced Marriages Act already allows for civil actions, but it is unlikely that a high proportion of victims press criminal charges against their own parents. For this reason it is important to give the courts the power to prosecute.
“Forced marriages need to be criminalised. It is a very sensitive and real issue within communities. It is not something we can brush under the carpet. The ideal end product would be to get legislation to make it a criminal offence to force a bride or groom into an arranged marriage. And we need to make sure that statutory bodies like the police act on that legislation,” said Mr Chaudry.