A/HRC/4/23 page 11 UNICEF concluded in a recent report that while boys under 18 years of age are affected by early marriage, this is an issue that impacts upon girls in far larger numbers and with more intensity.7 28. The different kinds of forced marriage listed include: to settle debt (Afghanistan); to receive dowry payment (Tanzania); to further cultural/economic interests, e.g. forced marriages initiated by landlords or local commanders who overrule girls/women and parents (Afghanistan); to gain control over daughters’ lives by sending daughters back to the home country to marry local men (United Kingdom, United States of America, France, Austria and Switzerland); of girls to men from overseas in order for them to obtain residence permits as husbands (United Kingdom, Germany); to display status, e.g. bride wealth (Kenya); as inheritance when a widow is forced to marry a dead husband’s brother, or a widower marries a dead wife’s younger sister without her consent (Africa); in trokosi or devadasi, when young girls are forcibly married to a local god, represented by a priest (Ghana and India); after abduction or kidnapping (Afghanistan, Ghana, Serbia among the Roma people); to any willing groom, often men with disability or of lower class, to a girl who is impregnated while living at home by a male relative (Kenya); to “protect” a girl’s virginity and counteract promiscuity (Kenya); as compensation when men of one extended family have killed a man of another extended family (Afghanistan); to relieve poverty and for economic gain (Zambia); and to facilitate female genital mutilation (Ethiopia). Moreover, polygamous marriages were also described as constituting forced marriages. Furthermore, the Special Rapporteur was also informed about cases of trafficking in girls to fill the gap caused by the practice of female foeticide in certain parts of India, including Punjab, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Hryana.7 29. The often criminal and hidden nature of forced marriages, combined with the fact that most forced marriages take place in closed families, groups, communities or societies, makes it particularly difficult to compile reliable statistics on how many women and girls are subjected to forced marriages of any kind every year. The Government of The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the IOM office in Afghanistan, for example, concluded in their responses that although forced marriages are common in these countries, no specific data are available. 30. Some statistics do exist, however. The Government of the United Kingdom reported that its Forced Marriage Unit handles about 250-300 cases a year of British nationals, mostly involving girls and women between 13 and 30 years of age, forced into marriage.8 Likewise, the Government of Austria noted that in 2005, a total of 46 persons were affected or threatened by forced marriage in Austria. The Ashiana Network reported that a growing number of young women, especially 16 to 24-year-olds, are threatened with physical, emotional and sexual violence before being forced to marry mainly strangers in their parents’ homelands. From April 2005 to March 2006 the organization advised 79 women who were threatened with forced marriage. 7 UNICEF, “Early Marriage: Child Spouses”, Innocenti Digest, vol. 7 (March 2001), Innocenti Research Centre, Florence, Italy, pp. 11-12. 8 See note 6 above.