Join us in a webinar to launch our new global database mapping all UN Member States’ international obligations and domestic legislation relating to forced marriage: the Forced Marriage in Domestic Legislation database.
The database examines the domestic legislation in place in 193 UN Member States, considering the extent to which each country has established provisions prohibiting forced marriage, servile matrimonial transactions, and marriage trafficking, as well as laws requiring consent to marriage and establishing a minimum age for marriage.
In this webinar, we will introduce the database, explain the methodology, and present an overview of key findings. Representatives from civil society organisations working on tackling child, early, and forced marriage and modern slavery will reflect on the significance and potential uses of the database for policy, advocacy, and practice.
Speakers will include:
Dr Helen McCabe, Associate Professor in Political Theory, University of Nottingham
Dr Katarina Schwarz, Rights Lab Associate Director (Law and Policy) and Associate Professor of Antislavery Law and Policy, University of Nottingham
Dr Hannah Baumeister, Lecturer in Law, Liverpool John Moores University
Natasha Rattu, Executive Director, Karma Nirvana
Brittany Quy, Senior Analyst (Research and Policy), Walk Free
Sophia Lane, Senior Advocacy and Campaigns Officer, Girls Not Brides
Please register for this event, which will be held Microsoft Teams. A meeting link will be sent to all registered participants after registration.
Speaker bios
Dr Helen McCabe leads the Rights Lab's work on forced marriage and is a key author of the Forced Marriage in Domestic Legislation Database. Her research background includes the history of feminism and 'ideal' marriage, and she is working on a conceptual analysis and definition of forced marriage as a form of slavery today: the meaning, experience, prevalence, causes, consequences of forced and servile marriage, and how to end it. Helen currently serves as the Thematic Research Lead for the Arts and Humanities in UK Parliament.
Dr Katarina Schwarz leads the Rights Lab’s Law and Policy Programme. Her research interrogates the law and policy frameworks operating at the global, regional, and domestic level to determine the elements of effective anti-slavery governance and map trends, successes, and failures in this area. She is the primary architect of the Antislavery in Domestic Legislation Database and now a key author of this sibling dataset—the Forced Marriage in Domestic Legislation Database.
Dr Hannah Baumeister is a Senior Lecturer in Law at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU). Her research focuses on (conflict-related) gender-based violence, its causes, consequences, and ways of addressing in law, education, and the arts. Hannah is one of the key authors of the Forced Marriage in Domestic Legislation Database, having led the data collection and coding of material in the Database during her time as a Research Fellow in the Rights Lab at the University of Nottingham.
Natasha Rattu is the Executive Director at Karma Nirvana, leading the organisation’s mission to end Honour Based Abuse (HBA) in the UK. A graduate of Leeds Law School, Natasha specialised in family and criminal law at Nottingham Law School, and since qualifying as a Barrister in 2009, she has devoted her career to supporting victims of domestic and Honour Based Abuse. With nearly two decades of experience, Natasha’s work has involved supporting survivors, developing interventions, and shaping national policy.
Brittany Quy is a Senior Analyst, Research & Policy at Walk Free, an international human rights organisation working to end all forms of modern slavery. Her research focuses on modern slavery in the Asia Pacific region and measuring government responses to modern slavery. Brittany is a contributing author of the 2023 Global Slavery Index. She holds a Master of International Relations and Master of International Law from the University of Western Australia.
Sophia Lane is a Senior Advocacy and Campaigns Officer at Girls Not Brides. Sophia supports the development and delivery of Girls Not Brides’ global advocacy and campaigns to end child marriage, in collaboration with teams based in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean, member organisations and National Partnerships and coalitions. Sophia has worked with a range of organisations on gender equality and women’s rights at the national, regional and international levels, including at the Council of Europe and UN and EU agencies, and non-governmental organisations. Most recently, Sophia worked in public affairs and campaigns for a national charity to tackle domestic abuse in England. For the past several years, her work has mainly focused on tackling violence against women and girls, and she has previously also worked in the areas of health and education in relation to women’s and girls’ rights. Her experience of gender equality work ranges from Europe to Africa. As a member of the Child, Early and Forced Marriage Working Group of the Commonwealth Youth Gender & Equality Network (CYGEN), Sophia also co-wrote a report of a workshop on advocacy to end child marriage. She holds an MA in Modern History and an LLM in Human Rights.
Event partners
The Rights Lab at the University of Nottingham is the world’s first large-scale research platform for ending modern slavery. We are the world’s largest group of modern slavery researchers, and home to many leading modern slavery experts. Through our four research programmes, we deliver new and cutting-edge research that provides rigorous data, evidence and discoveries for the global antislavery effort. The goal of ending slavery is ambitious. But in the Rights Lab we believe that by working together as part of the global antislavery community, we can achieve evidence-based strategies for ending slavery.
Karma Nirvana run the UK’s national helpline for Honour Based Abuse, including forced and child marriage. They were founded in 1993 as the first specialist charity for victims and survivors. Karma Nirvana train frontline professional practitioners and professionals, work to raise awareness, and campaign for change. They were instrumental in spearheading the campaign to change the law on child marriage in England and Wales: the legal age of marriage was raised to 18 in February 2023. They continue to campaign for a change in the law in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and on a range of other issues including the need for a statutory definition of honour-based abuse. They have co-coordinated Girls Not Brides UK since 2014.
Girls Not Brides is the global partnership to end child marriage. They are a global network formed of over 1400 civil society member organisations in over 100 countries, working collectively to end child, early and forced marriages and unions so that girls can fulfil their potential. Member organisations are based in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas and the Middle East. Girls Not Brides was initiated in September 2011 by The Elders, a group of independent global leaders working together for peace and human rights. It became an independent charity in 2013.
Walk Free is an international human rights group focused on the eradication of modern slavery, in all its forms, in our lifetime. Walk Free are building a robust knowledge base to inform action, driving legislative change in key countries and harnessing the power of businesses and faiths. Through a combination of direct implementation, grassroots community engagement, and working in partnership with faiths, businesses, academics, NGOs, and governments around the world, Walk Free works to address slavery and dismantle its core drivers.