Asian families in the Bradford district have been warned that as many as 2,000 girls a year could be running away from home to escape forced marriages by the year 2011.

The figure has been calculated by experts at Bradford University using the rapid increase in the city's runaways and growth in population.

The statistics were revealed during secret talks conducted by the Foreign Office in Bradford yesterday in a bid to discover the size of the problem.

Last year police were called to deal with incidents involving 290 women, who were often initially reported as missing, and later found to have escaped an unwanted marriage.

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Baroness Elizabeth Symons has asked the Consular section of the Foreign Office to arrange a national seminar in Bradford on the subject. And yesterday Mike O'Brian, Home Office Minister for race relations and immigration, visited Keighley at the request of MP Ann Cryer. He called on the Asian community to work with the Government to wipe out the practice of forced marriages. Mr O'Brian, who was at Oakbank School, said New Labour supported arranged marriages. "Arranged marriages entered into voluntarily are often very successful, are quite proper and are something the Government can support. But we do have a problem with the small number of men and women who are forced into marriages," he said.

Official figures show the number of forced marriages involving reluctant British spouses from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh has increased two- or three-fold since November 1998.

One of the Foreign Office's Consular officers arrived in Bradford yesterday for a two-day visit to conduct research into the scale of the problem. He spoke to Bradford police Philip Balmforth and Inspector Martin Baines, the Bishop of Bradford's Interfaith Advisor Dr Philip Lewis, Telegraph & Argus reporter Marianne Sumner and will be speaking today to airport officials.

Insp Baines supported the seminar idea, saying the publicity from articles in the T&A, backed by prominent members of the communities, had helped positive open discussion.

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