Reviewed and updated 22 August 2026.
By Aneeta Prem MBE
Forced marriage and modern slavery can overlap. They are not the same legal category.
That distinction matters because strong safeguarding depends on identifying the harm accurately rather than choosing the most dramatic label available.
Forced marriage is always serious abuse
Forced marriage is a criminal offence and a serious abuse of human rights. It occurs where one or both people do not freely consent and pressure or abuse is used, or where a person lacks the capacity to consent.
For children under 18 in England and Wales, the law goes further: conduct intended to cause the child to enter a marriage can be an offence even without proving violence, threats or another form of coercion.
But forced marriage is not automatically modern slavery
The Home Office modern-slavery statutory guidance is explicit: a forced marriage alone does not necessarily mean that a person is a victim of modern slavery.
For a case to fall within the modern-slavery framework, the facts also need to meet the legal components of human trafficking, slavery, servitude or forced or compulsory labour.
That may happen in some forced marriages. It does not happen in every one.
Where the two can overlap
A forced-marriage case may also involve modern slavery where, for example, somebody is recruited or moved through coercion for exploitation, held in domestic servitude, forced to work, deprived of meaningful freedom or treated as property.
The individual facts matter.
A person may be taken overseas for marriage and then forced into unpaid domestic work. Another may be brought into the UK and have documents, money and movement controlled. A marriage may be used as part of trafficking or exploitation.
Those circumstances can engage more than one legal and safeguarding framework at the same time.
What international slavery law says about servile marriage
The 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery identifies particular forms of servile marriage as institutions or practices similar to slavery.
Its wording covers situations such as a woman being promised or given in marriage without a right to refuse in exchange for payment or consideration, a husband or family having the right to transfer her to another person, or a widow being inherited after her husband’s death.
That is narrower than saying every forced marriage is legally slavery.
The distinction is important because international law is identifying specific forms of ownership, transfer and servitude.
Why the distinction helps victims
If professionals assume every forced marriage is automatically modern slavery, they may use the wrong legal test or referral route.
If they assume the two can never overlap, they may miss trafficking, servitude or labour exploitation hidden inside the marriage.
The better approach is to ask separate questions:
- Was the marriage freely chosen?
- Was the person moved, recruited or harboured through coercion or deception?
- What exploitation followed?
- Can the person leave safely?
- Are they being forced to work or provide services?
- Are money, documents, movement or communication being controlled?
Those questions reveal the actual pattern rather than forcing the case into one label too early.
A current example of legal reform
Kazakhstan added a specific offence of coercion into marriage to its Criminal Code in 2025. Article 125-1 criminalises compelling somebody to marry through threats of violence, property damage, blackmail or other serious pressure.
That reform is useful because it names forced marriage directly. It does not require every forced-marriage case to be reclassified as trafficking or slavery before the law can respond.
Why hidden and informal marriages still matter
Legal protection can be weakened where a marriage is religious, customary, unregistered or arranged outside formal systems.
For safeguarding purposes, the absence of a civil marriage certificate does not make coercion harmless. UK forced-marriage law expressly recognises ceremonies that may not be legally binding.
Professionals should therefore focus on the reality of the arrangement: what is being required of the person, whether they can refuse, and what happens if they try to leave.
Survivor support cannot stop at rescue
Leaving a forced marriage or exploitative household may create immediate risks around housing, money, immigration status, family retaliation and safety.
Where modern slavery is also suspected, the relevant trafficking and modern-slavery pathways may be needed alongside forced-marriage safeguarding.
Where it is not, the person still needs appropriate domestic-abuse, safeguarding, legal and practical support.
Final word
Forced marriage does not need to be called modern slavery to be taken seriously.
Some cases do meet modern-slavery or slavery-like definitions. Others do not.
The strongest safeguarding response is the one that identifies every element of the abuse accurately — coercion, marriage, trafficking, servitude or exploitation — and uses the protections that genuinely fit the facts.
Sources and further reading
- Home Office: modern slavery statutory guidance
- GOV.UK: multi-agency forced-marriage guidance
- United Nations: 1956 Supplementary Slavery Convention
- Kazakhstan Criminal Code, Article 125-1
