CPS forced marriage and FGM: how prosecutorial framing shapes justice
By Aneeta Prem MBE, Founder of Freedom Charity
CPS forced marriage and FGM cases test how the criminal justice system understands coercion, consent and risk. The law in England and Wales is clear. Forced marriage, female genital mutilation and coercive control are criminal offences. Yet prosecutions still fall away, and too many victims remain unprotected. In practice, the problem rarely sits in statute. Instead, it arises from how professionals frame the case, interpret evidence, and apply the law on a day-to-day basis.
This article explains the role of the Crown Prosecution Service in CPS forced marriage and FGM cases, where decisions can falter, and why language and legal analysis shape justice and survivor protection.
“The law on forced marriage and FGM is clear. Difficulties arise not from statute, but from how cases are framed and understood in practice.”
Aneeta Prem MBE
CPS forced marriage and FGM: what the CPS does, and what it does not do
The Crown Prosecution Service does not investigate crime. It prosecutes it.
Under the Code for Crown Prosecutors, the CPS decides whether the evidence offers a realistic prospect of conviction and whether prosecution serves the public interest. It reviews police files, selects charges and sets the prosecutorial approach for court. As a result, the way the CPS frames behaviour can influence how decision-makers weigh evidence, interpret consent and assess credibility. If forced marriage or FGM is treated as exceptional or culturally complex, evidential expectations can rise beyond what the law requires. That shift, in turn, harms victims, particularly children and traumatised adults, who may not disclose in neat or predictable ways.
The problem with “honour-based abuse” language
In England and Wales, “honour-based abuse” is not a statutory category. It is not an offence, and it does not define a legal test.
Parliament has already criminalised the conduct that sits under this label. Those offences cover forced marriage, FGM, threats, assaults, harassment, stalking and controlling or coercive behaviour. Furthermore, international human rights law rejects culture, tradition or so-called honour as a justification for violence.
The phrase itself is not the central issue. Rather, risk arises when language with no standing in law begins to shape charging thinking, risk assessment or the pace of intervention. A cultural frame can invite caution. By contrast, a criminal frame demands clarity and action.
CPS forced marriage: consent, coercion and misread silence
In CPS forced marriage cases, consent is often misread.
Some professionals mistake compliance for choice. Others treat silence as agreement. Too often, agencies underplay the role of family networks, even though collective pressure drives the coercion.
Consent obtained through fear, threats, confinement, surveillance, financial control or reputational pressure is not consent. Equally, a child cannot consent to marriage. Moreover, a victim does not need to show physical resistance for a crime to exist. For that reason, prosecutors and investigators should focus on coercive context and evidence, not on whether a victim appeared to “fight back”.
CPS forced marriage: why silence and compliance do not equal consent
Many victims do not resist openly because resistance increases danger. Silence can be a survival strategy. Therefore, that reality should shape the way professionals assess evidence and risk.
A prosecution approach that expects a victim to articulate refusal, repeat an account perfectly, or present distress in a certain way does not match how coercion works. In addition, it can deter victims from seeking help, especially where abusers threaten banishment, retaliation or harm to siblings.
CPS FGM prosecution: known risk, disclosure and prevention
FGM remains one of the most under-prosecuted serious crimes in the UK. The offence is clear. However, the practical difficulty often lies in how systems respond to risk.
Mandatory reporting exists because children cannot be expected to describe abuse. Even so, cases can stall where agencies look for direct disclosure that a frightened or traumatised child cannot provide. Consequently, that approach weakens prevention and delays protection.
FGM law aims to prevent harm as well as punish it. Where risk is credible, systems should move early and decisively.
CPS forced marriage and FGM: when “culture” becomes a barrier to prosecution
English criminal law provides no cultural defence.
Cultural framing can raise evidential thresholds and slow safeguarding action. It can also racialise violence by suggesting that some communities carry a special category of abuse. As a result, that framing benefits perpetrators who rely on uncertainty and professional hesitation.
A clear approach protects everyone. It identifies criminal conduct and applies the same legal principles to every victim and every perpetrator.
CPS forced marriage and FGM: a clearer legal frame for dishonour in abuse
The conduct in these cases is already criminal. Prosecutors do not need cultural terminology to identify charges.
Freedom Charity has developed an internal analytical framework mapping more than 200 behaviours commonly described as “honour-based” to existing criminal offences. In effect, this work shows that the law already captures the conduct and provides prosecutorial routes without cultural framing.
In legal terms, abuse justified by reputation, shame or family pressure is not a nuance. Instead, it is serious criminal conduct, often aggravated by misuse of power and, at times, the involvement of multiple actors.
CPS forced marriage and FGM: what good practice looks like
Good CPS practice begins with practical clarity.
It identifies criminal conduct without cultural framing. It applies consent and capacity principles correctly. It acts on known risk rather than waiting for disclosure. It treats collective and reputational coercion as a feature of seriousness, not a reason to hesitate. Finally, it frames the case around evidence and harm, not around narrative.
Conclusion: CPS forced marriage and FGM, clarity and survivor dignity
Survivors often say that abusers used the language of “honour” to control them and keep them silent. When official systems repeat that language in the context of abuse, it can sound like an echo of the perpetrator’s justification, even when that is not the intent.
The law on forced marriage and FGM is already clear. Now professionals must apply it with the same clarity. Prosecutors must see crime, not culture; coercion, not compliance; risk, not hesitation. In doing so, protection becomes real, and prosecutions become possible.
“Put simply, the law requires the state to prosecute these acts as crimes, and to ensure that the language of ‘honour’ does not travel from the perpetrator’s threat into the justice system’s vocabulary.” Aneeta Prem MBE