THERE’S a world of difference between the age-old tradition of arranged weddings and youngsters being forced into marriage against their will.

Forced marriages are a practice which, as the Prime Minister said last week, are just “plain wrong”.

Two years ago Lancashire police took the innovative step of being the first to apply for a Forced Marriage Protection Order which is in effect an injunction to impose legal sanctions on any adult who tries to send someone, usually a teenage girl, abroad to be married to a man she has often never met.

Now the first ‘drop-in’ centre in the country specifically set up to deal with this difficult subject has revealed how here in East Lancashire it has managed to stop eight forced marriages from going ahead.

Because of the enormous family pressures and bullying they involve forced marriages are extremely difficult to tackle.

Two of the cases dealt with at the centre came from referrals by college staff who have been trained to spot warning signs and offer help.

As mosques chairman Salim Mulla says, forced marriages can never be justified. This problem must be stamped out.