Letter: Forced marriages

The Forced Marriage Bill is now published (your report, 1 October) and the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act soon comes into force, both reflecting two sad aspects of our society, albeit one is presumably more widespread.

But nowhere have I seen the obvious connection made, namely that forced marriage itself involves both serial rape and incitement to rape, which the spokeswomen you quoted seem reluctant to acknowledge.

So why is the proposed prison sentence in the bill a mere two years, compared with the possibility of "life" imprisonment for rape? Some joined-up thinking is surely required.

John Birkett

Horseleys Park

St Andrews