Aged 16, Jasvinder Sanghera made a decision that would change her life forever. Born into an Indian Sikh family in Derby, she was expected to marry an older man her parents had picked out. Sanghera had already watched her five older sisters be forced into unhappy, abusive marriages, and knew she didn’t want to marry the stranger her parents had chosen.

When she refused the marriage, her home life became unbearable. Her parents pulled her out of school and locked her in her bedroom, only letting her out once she agreed to the wedding. But before she could be married off, Sanghera ran away. Her boyfriend at the time helped her escape her parents’ house, and they fled to Newcastle.

When the police tracked them down, they persuaded Sanghera to call her mother, who told her she had two choices: either return or marry the stranger, or be cut off from her family forever. She chose the latter.

Today, Sanghera is 52, with a CBE, three grown-up children, two grandsons, and a loving partner – who, she tells me proudly, is an avowed feminist. She is also the founder of Karma Nirvana, the national charity supporting survivors of forced marriage and honour-based abuse. The organisation, which she set up from her living room in 1993, will celebrate its 25th anniversary later this summer.

To date, Karma Nirvana’s telephone helpline has dealt with 68,000 calls from survivors and professionals working with survivors, and its lobbying directly contributed to the government making forced marriage a crime in the UK in 2014.

But Sanghera isn’t resting on her laurels. Despite being criminalised, forced marriage and honour-based abuse are still pervasive problems in the UK: in fact, the number of such cases rose by 53% between 2014 and 2017, with just 5% of reported ‘honour’ crimes reported by police to the Crown Prosecution Service. Clearly, there is still much work to be done.

Below, Stylist speaks with Sanghera about her experiences, her achievements, and her hopes for the future.

Why Jasvinder Sanghera is still fighting to support victims of forced marriage