Britain has announced a new initiative to prevent forced marriages within the Asian community.

The measure involves educating the young people at risk and providing assistance. Under the initiative, guidelines have been issued to teachers and college lecturers on how to tell the difference between forced and arranged marriages. The guidelines include advice on how pupils at risk can be identified and how to get them help.
 
The Foreign Office and the Home Office launched the joint Forced Marriage Unit (FMU) and along with the Department for Education and Skills announced new educational guidelines on forced marriages.

Every year the Foreign office handles several cases of forced marriages. Most of them originate from South Asia, but officials have also seen examples from East Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Officials have dealt with cases involving Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Christians, official sources said.

The Forced Marriage Unit will act as the government's central point for forced marriage casework, policy and projects and will provide information and assistance both to potential victims and to concerned professionals.

Some 'honour killings' have been linked to young women rebelling against forced marriages. The police last year announced they would reinvestigate hundreds of reported disappearances, suicides and missing persons in an effort to find out the scale of the problem in Britain.

Home secretary Charles Clarke said one third of cases of forced marriage involved individuals under the age of 18. He said launching the unit was an "important step to tackling forced marriage in this sector of public life".

"Forced marriage is nothing less than an abuse of human rights," Clarke said. "It can involve serious forms of duress, including physical assault."

Experts point to the high suicide rate among Asian girls aged between 15 and 25 as evidence that violence against them remains undetected.

The Foreign Office minister Baroness Symons said the department had also rescued and brought 70 young people a year back to Britain from overseas.

She said that, although the issue was often assumed to affect only women, 15 percent of cases identified by officials involved men and boys.

The Baroness said: "In the last four years we have dealt with more than 1,000 cases and helped repatriate around 200 young people to Britain. 

"Now, by tackling this abuse at home, as well as abroad, we can try and prevent forced marriages, and prevent young people being exposed to the type of physical and mental abuse we have heard about today."