"Her mental state was absolutely gone. Her independence had been taken away."
"Devastated, angry and frustrated," he called every number he thought could help, from local Members of Parliament to Amnesty International, and flew to Bangladesh in a bid to rescue her.
He found her by chance at the house of one of her cousins and spoke to her through a window, vowing to get her out.
He said the Bangladeshi police issued an arrest warrant for him on suspicion of kidnap.
He took her case to the Bangladeshi supreme court. "Eventually her family had no choice but to give up," Miah said.
British Asian actor Ameet Chana, 30, who starred in the 2002 film Bend It Like Beckham and the BBC television soap EastEnders and helps campaign on the issue, was shocked that 15 percent of the Forced Marriages Unit's cases were men.
"If you're a bloke, a bit macho, how can you come forward and tell someone you're in a forced marriage?" he said.
"They are taking place under our noses in this country. It's good to stay traditional, but forced marriage is not part of any culture."
"The older generation needs to realize there's a way of doing things in the West -- and it's not always the way that it used to be back home."



