Nine-year-old brides saved by authorities from being married off in Muslim weddings

British children as young as nine are being forced to marry against their will by their families, campaigners have warned.

Charities supporting victims of forced marriages report growing numbers of young teenagers and children seeking help.

They are urging schools to take tougher action where they suspect pupils are at risk, and to monitor their rolls carefully and raise the alarm when children disappear.

Thousands of Britons - mainly young women from the Asian communities - are thought to be victims of forced marriage each year, but concerns are increasingly focused on the plight of underage girls who are being offered for marriage to foreign men when they have barely left primary school.

No accurate figures exist for the scale of the problem, although the Government's Forced Marriage Unit has helped rescue around 60 children aged 15 or under in the past four years - including 11 so far in 2008 - and experts fear that may represent only the tip of the iceberg.

Typically victims are taken overseas by their families on a false pretext and forced to marry. Extreme cases where women rebel against their family's plans and try to run away have led to so-called 'honour killings' or suicides.

Ministers angered campaigners two years ago by dropping plans to make it a criminal offence to force someone to marry, after Muslim groups objected strongly to the plans.

A charity operating a national helpline on forced marriage, Karma Nirvana, yesterday highlighted one incident where a nine-year-old girl from a Pakistani family in the east Midlands was taken into care after her parents told her she was to be married.

Director Jasvinder Sanghera said that on average one child a week aged under 16 had sought assistance since the helpline launched in April.

'The youngest child we have dealt with was nine years old,' she said. 'The girl told her teacher she was going to be forced to marry someone and initially she was not believed.

'Ultimately, with the help of the Forced Marriage Unit, she was dealt with through child
source..