News and Analysis

Aneeta Prem explains why she chose fiction to help children understand forced marriage, FGM, consent, safety and the courage to tell a trusted adult.

Aneeta Prem writes about living with trigeminal neuralgia, leading TNA UK and why patient experience belongs alongside clinical expertise, research and service data.

Aneeta Prem reflects on why criminalisation mattered, what the 2014 law changed, why the 2023 reforms went further and why legislation alone cannot protect every person at risk.

Parliament has enacted a statutory definition of honour-based abuse. The harder question is whether a definition will change what professionals recognise, record and do when somebody asks for help.

Forced marriage, FGM and the safeguarding disclosure gap when children disappear from professional sight.

FGM prevention is essential, but survivor care remains unfinished. Aneeta Prem calls for a clear NHS pathway, specialist counselling, trained professionals and evidence-led treatment choices.

Many children are not choosing the best place to spend their time. They are choosing the safest unsafe place available.

Henry Nowak’s murder raises difficult questions about first impressions, medical urgency, policing judgement and the duty to preserve life.

Afghanistan's child marriage is worsening as hunger, aid cuts and Taliban family law place girls at risk. Aneeta Prem writes on why silence is not consent.

What the Nottingham child-marriage case shows about the law, overseas ceremonies and safeguarding since the minimum marriage age rose to 18.

AI abuse in schools is not a reason to remove every photograph. It is a reason to use images with stronger consent, clearer purpose, and better safeguarding judgment.

The Forced Marriage Unit recorded 406 tailored-assistance cases in 2025. Forty per cent involved children and 18% involved concerns about capacity to consent.

The Aneeta Prem A to Z patient-voice framework on mental health, facial pain and quality of life

On National Honesty Day, Aneeta Prem writes that honesty is not a slogan. It is the refusal to dress child harm, abuse, professional silence or invisible pain in softer language. The lie is not always what is said. Sometimes the lie is the language used to make harm sound smaller.

Aneeta Prem on fear, silence and the safeguarding signs adults must notice before crisis

England’s mobile-phone guidance is now statutory, with schools expected to begin following it from 1 September 2026.

Menstrual-health education matters, but it cannot solve period poverty where girls lack products, dignity, privacy or the freedom to ask for help.

The Lee Milne case is a legal milestone. New national data also shows why suspected suicides following domestic abuse must be understood as part of the fatal-abuse picture, with careful attention to evidence and causation.

Forced marriage may involve parents, relatives or others acting together. UK law can address multiple offenders, but professionals still need to recognise the whole pattern rather than isolated incidents.

The World Health Organisation has marked World Health Day 2026 under the theme “Together for health. Stand with science.” It is a timely message. But health is not only about medicine. It is also about whether people can live safely, speak freely and make choices without fear.

The March 2026 safeguarding update makes one thing harder to deny: forced marriage and FGM belong inside mainstream child protection. The question now is whether institutions can act early enough to prevent harm.

The NHS provides specialist FGM care and deinfibulation, but there is no routine NHS pathway for clitoral reconstruction. Research is now testing the evidence gap.

Women’s rights mean little if law, protection and justice cannot be reached in practice. The 2026 evidence shows how large that implementation gap remains.

Research found economic abuse in more than half of the Domestic Homicide Reviews examined, while fewer than half of review panels identified it themselves.

Why Aneeta Prem’s safeguarding books help children understand forced marriage and female genital mutilation

National policy recognises health inequalities and long diagnostic journeys in rare conditions. For trigeminal neuralgia, the next question is whether pathway differences are measured clearly enough to improve them.

A 2026 systematic review found higher incidence and prevalence estimates in women, while important questions about sex differences remain unanswered.

CPS guidance now covers dowry abuse, immigration exploitation, transnational marriage abandonment and spiritual abuse. The Crime and Policing Act 2026 has enacted a statutory HBA framework, but sections 143–144 still require commencement regulations.

Freedom Charity has donated more than 100,000 safeguarding books, with accompanying lesson resources that received the PSHE Association Quality Mark.

Rare Disease Day 2026 focused on equity. For people with rare conditions, that means fair access to diagnosis, specialist care, treatment and a health system designed to recognise rarity without lowering standards.

More than 2.6 million adolescent girls are now estimated to be excluded from secondary education in Afghanistan. The consequences reach into health, economic independence, child marriage risk and long-term safeguarding.

The Gambia’s 2015 ban on FGM remains in force while a constitutional challenge continues before the Supreme Court. The case tests how rights to religion and culture are balanced against the protection of women and girls.

Stalking can involve relatives, third parties and digital monitoring as well as former partners or strangers. The law focuses on the course of conduct and its impact, not on who the stalker is.

How AI nudification turns ordinary photographs into sexual abuse and why children need clear protection.

Why capacity, free consent and coercion must be understood separately in forced marriage and safeguarding practice.

Balochistan’s 2025 provincial law sets 18 as the minimum marriage age for both sexes and creates criminal penalties around child marriage. Its impact will depend on enforcement and access to protection.

What the latest UK evidence shows, what official statistics cannot tell us, and why safeguarding must focus on behaviour rather than stereotypes.

The Government has committed to halving violence against women and girls in a decade. The real test is whether prevention, policing and victim support improve in measurable ways.

What the Government’s final VAWG strategy promises, what has begun to change, and where delivery still matters for women and girls.

New Charity Commission evidence shows that social division is affecting a significant minority of charities. Trustees need proportionate security, risk management and confidence to keep lawful charitable work going.

The UK’s flagship Africa-led FGM programme is due to end in October 2026 with no successor funding currently planned. Other UK-funded gender-based-violence programmes continue to address FGM.

The Angiolini Inquiry has moved beyond one murderer to questions about police vetting, predatory behaviour, public-space sexual offending and women’s trust in policing.

From early descriptions of facial pain and Fothergill’s 1773 account to carbamazepine, vascular compression and modern surgery: how understanding of trigeminal neuralgia evolved.

The Crown Prosecution Service has set two central priorities for violence-against-women-and-girls cases: better casework and greater public trust. Its five-year plan contains specific commitments that can be measured.

Forced marriage is always a serious abuse, but it is not automatically modern slavery. Some cases also involve trafficking, servitude, forced labour or slavery-like practices.

Forced to marry, silenced by fear: Afghan girls in the shadow of Farkhunda’s death

Common features of temporomandibular disorder, what jaw clicking does and does not mean, and when persistent facial pain needs clinical assessment.

What Sara Sharif’s case exposed about safeguarding, and what the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 must now deliver in practice.

The statutory inquiry began on 13 April 2026. Its remit covers group-based child sexual exploitation, institutional failures, local investigations and the role of factors including ethnicity, religion and culture in offending and institutional responses.

Aneeta Prem’s second novel entered public life through a House of Commons launch with Nicky Morgan and a Reed Smith event with foreword writer Miriam Margolyes.

The Evening Standard included Aneeta Prem among its 2016 Equality Champions, describing her as a human-rights campaigner.

In 2016, the High Court ordered a father in Saudi Arabia to permit and facilitate his adult British daughter’s return to England and Wales. The case exposed the limits of domestic protection across borders.

Freedom Charity created and registered the Red Triangle as a visible symbol against FGM. Its purpose is to start safeguarding conversations, not replace professional action.

Both practices are illegal across the UK. No examination can prove virginity, and professionals should recognise the wider safeguarding risks that may sit behind a request.

Freedom Charity’s Not in My Name campaign asks boys and young men to reject FGM, forced marriage and abuse justified through family reputation.

A learning disability does not automatically mean someone lacks capacity. The key question is whether they can freely understand and consent to this specific marriage.

Times Higher Education invited Aneeta Prem to speak in Glasgow on why girls’ education, forced marriage and FGM belong inside the sustainable-development debate.

TNA UK’s Face of TN campaign used portraits and visual storytelling to make trigeminal neuralgia easier to see and discuss without sensationalising the condition.

Cold air, a cool breeze and air conditioning can trigger attacks for some people with trigeminal neuralgia. The effect is real, even when the condition is invisible.