Understanding forced marriage in Scotland

Appendix 2: Research Instruments

Survey

Policy Analysis Template and Topic Guide

Interview Schedule (Professionals)

Topic Guide (Survivors)

Understanding Forced Marriage in Scotland Survey

Scotland-based organisations that can help with forced marriage are listed at:
http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Justice/law/forced-marriage

Forced Marriage Unit
Email: fmu@fco.gov.uk
Telephone: 020 7008 0151
From overseas: +44 (0)20 7008 0151
Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm
Out of hours: 020 7008 1500 (ask for the Global Response Centre)

Template for Policy Analysis of Local Area Documentation

Area:

Existence of Policy Statement relevant to FMPOs

Roles/actions specified for: Child and Adult Protection Committee

Roles/actions specified for: Public Protection Committee

Roles/actions specified for Community Safety Partnership

Roles/actions specified for: MARAC

Roles/actions specified for: Violence Against Women Partnership

Alignment of Policy Statements(s) with Scottish Government Statutory Guidance

Consistency of Local Policy Statement(s)

Lead Individual(s) identified and role specified

Content/alignment of Policy Statements

Designated person for promoting awareness

Designated person for developing and updating policies

Designated person for case handling, monitoring and recording

Referral and accountability statements

Monitoring cases - nature and outcome

Information for staff on 'one chance checklist'

Information for staff on safety and protection

Information provided for staff on legal context for tackling Forced Marriage

Definitions of Forced Marriage provided for staff

Information on effective multi/interagency working and information sharing

Use of Scottish Govt MA Guidelines

Interview schedule - Forced Marriage Leads or Child Protection/Adult Protection Committee Leads within each case study area

Purpose of interviews: to explore progress/challenges in implementing national and local policies/multi-agency working, relationship between statutory and voluntary sectors.

Background of individual:

• Role (including leadership of multi-agency partnerships)
• Length of time in post

Forced Marriage within local multi-agency structures (explore barriers and facilitators)

• Formal discussion of Forced Marriage and local responses?
• Where have cases been discussed locally?
• Do you know who the FM leads are in your area?
• Relationship between FM leads and Protection Committee lead?
• Routes into multi-agency structures?
• Membership of multi-agency structures?
• Key players/sleeping partners?
• Examples of good multi-agency working?
• Examples of less well embedded multi-agency working?
• Relationship between statutory and third sector organisations?
• Shared training?
• Shared definitions?
• Shared operation of mandatory action?

Perception of Forced Marriage as a priority within the context of child/adult protection and violence against women?

Perceptions of Forced Marriage as a mature/fully embedded set of policies and practices

What more needs to be done?

Interview Schedule - Professionals
Questions	Probes
1. What is your role? 2. Geographic location 3. Type of agency	Length in role?
Topic 1: Knowledge of Forced Marriage
1. What is your understanding of the term forced marriage?	i.e. difference between forced and arranged/lack of consent/duress/knowledge of SG guidelines etc.
4. What do you consider to be the warning signs for a possible forced marriage incident?
5. In which communities do you think FM is an issue? Why?
Topic 2: Experience of Dealing with FM
1. Do you know if your organization has a policy on FM?	If yes, what is it?
2. Can you describe the work, if any, your organisation does in relation to FM?
3. What do you think your role is, if any, in tackling forced marriage/supporting victims of forced marriage?
4. Have you ever dealt with a FM incident/case?	If yes, probe about this - details and outcomes
5. Do you feel confident dealing with FM cases?
6. What support does your organisation offer?	i.e. interventions offered, onward referral ...
7. How would your organisation handle a case of FM?	Would they refer? Who are they most likely to refer to? Reasons for onward referral.
8. What barriers do you/your organisation experience in working with victims of FM?	i.e. sufficient knowledge and training, fears of being labelled culturally insensitive, organisation support/mandate to act.
9. How do you try to overcome these barriers?
10. What is your experience of multi-agency working re: forced marriage?
Topic 3: Interventions
1. The SG introduced FMPO in 2011/12. Do you know about this approach? How comfortable do you feel about interpreting/using the guidance if you had to deal with a FM incident/case?
2. In what circumstances would other legal interventions be used? What might these be?	i.e. staff attitudes to FMPO (regarding the practicalities/feasibility of FMPO) vs other forms of legal redress/interventions.
3. Would you routinely inform victims of FMPO? What have their reactions been to this?
4. What kind of impact, if any, has this had on your work with victims of FM?	Has it improved it; created more barriers such as legal costs and reluctance to prosecute family members.
5. What are the limitations of FMPO in your view?	Costs, victims' attitudes to FMPO, staff attitudes to FMPO (regarding the practicalities of FMPO).
6. What are the strengths of FMPO in your view?
7. What do you think accounts for the relatively low number of FMPOs (n=12) over the last four years?
8. The SG created a specific criminal offence of forcing someone to marry which came into effect in Sep 2014. What do you think of this?
9. Has this impacted on your work with victims of FM?	Increased/decreased number of victims coming forward/increased awareness of FM/increased staff confidence.
10. What kinds of intervention do you think work best with victims of forced marriage?
Topic 4: Improvement/Way Forward
1. Based on your experience, what do you think is required to better respond to FM?	Legislation, third sector support, better resources, training, awareness raising amongst young people around their options and protection, changing attitudes of families and communities.
2. What are your and your organisation's needs in better dealing with FM?	More training/better awareness and education of the issues.
3. As part of this study, we will be interviewing survivors of FM - would it be possible for you to put us in touch with any survivors please, if it is safe to do so?

Forced Marriage Survivor Topic Guide

Thanks for agreeing to talk with me / Consent form/confidentiality.

Demographic data:

• Age
• Ethnicity
• Citizenship
• Employment/student
• Disability
• Marital/Relationship Status

Understanding and Experience of Forced Marriage

1) Can you tell me something of what the term forced marriage means to you?

2) By agreeing to take part in the interview, you have identified yourself as a victim/survivor of forced marriage. Please can you tell me what happened/ or is currently happening?

[prompts: role of family - immediate and wider family and wider community]

3) What was your relationship with your parent(s) before the experience of forced marriage?...and after?

4) Did siblings have similar experiences?

Impact of and Coping with Forced Marriage

5) How did it/does it affect you?

(Prompts: education, employment, family relationships, wider social networks, emotional impact)

6) How did you/do you cope with that?

Disclosure and Help-seeking

7) Who did you first tell about your experience of forced marriage? e.g.

• Friends
• Family
• Helping agency ( e.g. college, university, voluntary agency?)
• Police/school staff/ healthcare worker/social worker
• Religious organisation
• Other

8) If you asked for help from family/friends or an organisation, can you tell me about your experience of asking for help? (prompts: what happened after you told the first person? E.g. onward referral? Did you receive the help you wanted? Difference between help from family/friends and more formal support )

9) If you didn't ask for help from anyone - (friends, family or organisation) - please can you say why you decided not to? Interventions (Civil and criminal legislation)

10) In 2011, the Scottish Government introduced civil legislation to protect victims of forced marriage. One of the main parts of this was the Forced Marriage Protection Order.

Have you heard of a FMPO? Did anyone mention a FMPO to you? (prompts: Was it explained what it was? / How it could be used?) Explain what an FMPO is if necessary.

11) Did you take out an FMPO?

• If yes, was it helpful?
• If no, why not?

12) What are your views on FMPOs?

13) The Scottish Government created a specific criminal offence of forcing someone to marry which came into effect in September 2014 and this can be used at the same time as FMPOs.

What are your views on this? (prompts e.g. if your experience of forced marriage was before 2014, would criminalisation have affected where or what support you might have considered?)

Improving Interventions

15) Can you tell whether existing support available to survivors of forced marriage meets their needs?

16) What could be improved?

17) What else would have helped you or other family members?

18) Is there anything else you'd like to say?

Thank participant for their time, check whether further support is required, give debrief sheet etc.

How to access background or source data

The data collected for this social research publication cannot be made available by the Scottish Government for further analysis because it is not held by the Scottish Government.