Pupils who fear they may be taken abroad and forced to marry against their will this summer have been encouraged to try to alert the authorities by putting a spoon in their underwear to trigger metal airport detectors.
Students at the Co-operative academy in Harehills in Leeds have all been given their own metal spoon as part of a programme designed to raise awareness about “honour”-based abuse and forced marriage.
According to Harinder Kaur, the social, culture and ethos leader at the academy, a hidden spoon could be a practical way of literally raising the alarm and alerting the authorities, which could save a young girl from a forced marriage.
A Guardian investigation recently revealed that more than 3,500 reports of forced marriage were made to police over a three-year period. In May a woman from Birmingham was jailed for four-and-a-half years for duping her 17-year-old daughter into travelling to Pakistan and forcing her to marry a man 16 years her senior.
The summer holiday is peak time for parents to take daughters abroad to be married. The academy, an inner-city secondary school, is working with the charity Karma Nirvana, which campaigns against “honour”-based abuse and forced marriage and educates students about the risks.
Last year alone, the charity took nearly 9,000 calls on its forced marriage helpline. Almost 200 of those calls were made either by children aged 15 or under or on their behalf.
Kaur said her school had been organising a week of events to coincide with the charity’s annual memory day to remember those who have died of “honour”-based abuse. A number of victims have been into the school to speak to students. “As educators, we have a responsibility to empower children with the knowledge and ability to make a difference to their own lives and the lives of others,” said Kaur.
Natasha Rattu, the head of learning and development at Karma Nirvana, said the spoon method had been used successfully in the past, but as well as offering it as practical advice, the main aim was to raise awareness of forced marriage and “honour”-based abuse among young people who might not realise they are victims themselves.
She said girls were often conditioned from an early age to consider it normal to be taken abroad to marry at a very young age and said calls to the charity’s helpline peaked in the summer. “The summer holiday is the ideal time for parents who want to take their child abroad to be married because the school won’t be looking for where they are,” she said.