Well here’s a gut-wrenching story. A father forces his daughter into an unwanted marriage, then rescues her from that marriage when he realizes how horrible it is.

The parents are from Turkey. The father had lived in London for 25 years but still thought that his daughter’s having a boyfriend at 17 meant she was falling victim to “the ways of the western world” and had to be married off to a stranger in Turkey, no matter how much she didn’t want to.

He and my mother tricked me into thinking we were going to Turkey just for a holiday, something we had done every summer throughout my life. On the final day, Dad took me to one side

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Dear old tradition.

Bride kidnapping, or “bridenapping”, happens in at least 17 countries around the world, from China to Mexico to Russia to southern Africa. In each of these lands, there are communities where it is routine for young women and girls to be plucked from their families, raped and forced into marriage. Few continents are not blighted by the practice, yet there is little awareness of these crimes, and few police investigations.

Well, you see, it’s something that happens to women and girls, and it doesn’t matter what happens to them. They aren’t really people you know. They look like people, sort of, but that’s deceptive – it’s just an outer thing, like the skin on a mango. … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The familiar pretty story:

Seventeen-year-old Jessie faced being forced into marriage to her
40-year-old cousin in Bangladesh. She begged the British Consulate in Dhaka for help and officials stepped in. She is just one of an estimated tens of thousands of British women at risk of being forced into marriage.

Alan Morrison, the British Consul in Bangladesh, says his team meet a girl
like Jessie every week.

Born in Britain but living in rural Bangladesh and promised in marriage to a
much older man.

Jessie managed to call the consulate when her father was at evening prayers.

“She told them she was desperate not to marry but did not have any money and
was not allowed to look after

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)