On 4 August the British Government announced a programme to protect its citizens from forced marriage.

Based on the Working Group on forced marriage's findings, published in June, the Home and Foreign Offices declared a joint Action Plan. Its proposals include raised awareness of this issue among consular staff, co-operation between British and overseas police forces, compiling annual statistics, support for victims, and a credit card-sized help list for girls at risk.

The list, small enough to be hidden, contains telephone numbers for consulates, police and charities. It will be available from doctors' surgeries, advice centres, consulates, as well as the Foreign Office.

Although some groups have welcomed these measures, there has been individual criticism that they do not take the realities of the situation into account. Many girls, once abroad, are in villages without electricity or telephones and they may be locked in or watched.

Forced marriage is most prevalent among girls from South Asian communities. The Government launched an independent inquiry into this issue last August following several high-profile cases in which women had either been killed by their families or were in hiding following death threats.

The Working Group, chaired by Baroness Uddin and Lord Ahmed, clearly distinguished forced marriage from arranged marriage in that in the tradition of arranged marriages spouses have the right to choose whether to accept the arrangement.

Currently there are no figures of how many people in the UK are affected by this abuse and one of the Government's goals is to begin assessing the situation and compiling statistics.

The majority are girls tricked under the pretense of going on holiday or to visit relatives in Pakistan, India or Bangladesh.

The new plan's effectiveness will be evaluated after six months.