The Co-operative Academy in the United Kingdom is handing out metal spoons to fight forced marriage. 

As the school year winds down before summer break, its students are being taught to hide cutlery in their underwear if they believe they are being taken overseas to be unwittingly married. That way, the metal from the silverware will trigger the metal detector, allowing them to make contact with airport security. 

Teacher Harinder Kaur explained that the spoons can "save lives", especially as 80 percent of UK forced marriages happen abroad during the summer holidays.

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"In the six-weeks holidays we know there is no contact between school and the family and families have that opportunity to go abroad, get their child married and come back," Kaur told the BBC. "It's a way of making our children aware there is a safety net there."

In the UK, it is a criminal offense to force people into marriage and can be punished by up to seven years in prison. (sul/kes)