COVID-19 and COVID-related decisions are having significant impacts on children and adults vulnerable to, and already experiencing, the crime of forced marriage. This mixed-methods project aimed to chart and understand this impact, inform evaluation of the UK's response to COVID-19, and shape on-going policy regarding the UK's pandemic response. This collection includes a timeline of key COVID-19 related events and government restrictions. This includes key data such as when COVID-19 (and variations) was discovered, and when significant case numbers were reached globally and in the UK. It also includes detail of when key forced marriage-related COVID-19 restrictions were brought in, and lifted, in 2020, and 2021, across the UK and also in each of the devolved jurisdictions. Plus processed data from this timeline, including visualisations.COVID-19 and COVID-related decisions are having significant impacts on children and adults vulnerable to, and already experiencing, the crime of forced marriage. Our mixed-methods project will chart and understand this impact, inform evaluation of the UK's response to COVID-19, and shape on-going policy regarding the UK's pandemic response. We consider the uneven economic and social impact of the pandemic, and the ethical dimensions of unequal impacts of COVID-related decision-making, on this vulnerable group, and seek to impact how civil society and the voluntary sector support vulnerable people. The government's Forced Marriage Unit (FMU) and the charity Karma Nirvana (KN) (which provides a national forced marriage helpline) have warned about the significant impact of the pandemic on forced marriage in the UK. We designed this project with both organisations, and will work with them to analyse quantitative and qualitative data about the impact of COVID-19 on those at risk of, or experiencing, forced marriage; and to record and analyse the challenges faced in the pandemic, evaluate the efficacy of mitigation strategies, and formulate new policies and practises for protection and response. Within the first 6 months, we will have co-created an accurate account of the economic and social impact of COVID-19 and COVID-related decision-making on victims of forced marriage, and the ethical implications of unequal impacts. We will then continue to chart the changing risk environment, while co-developing policy reports and recommendations for the UK government (including FMU), NGO practice responses (including KN), and other stakeholders, to improve the on-going response to COVID-19 and build community resilience.

We collected information from public websites, including UK government website, official airline carrier websites (and their Twitter feeds), and news media. We were particularly interested in a pre-set set of criteria, including: regulations relating to national and local “lockdowns” (or “stay at home” orders), restrictions on gatherings, school closures, restrictions relating to weddings, closures or access to places of religion, travel and shielding. In addition, we looked for any key dates or statistics for the pandemic at a global scale, and international travel restrictions relating to Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Afghanistan (because these are countries which regularly feature as "focus countries" in Forced Marriage Unit Data. We took a chronological approach, starting with UK-wide and global events, then focusing on England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and other countries. We made visulisations of data on regional and local lockdowns in 2020 using tableau, and also used the data collected to count how many days regions in England were under different Covid-19 restrictions relevant to vulnerability to forced marriage.